“Oh, that was a real flamethrower.”
Leonardo DiCaprio talked about the tough day on the set of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” when he had to use a flamethrower to burn up a pack of brave stuntmen dressed as Nazis. He was joined by co-stars Brad Pitt, Julia Butters, Margaret Qualley and Mike Moh to discuss Quentin Tarantino’s film during the Variety Screening Series presented by Vudu.
“The first day I used that was a really hard day. All the greatest stuntmen in this town’s history showed up for that Nazi convention. It was amazing. I really had to blast them with a real flamethrower and torch all of them,” DiCaprio said.
The initial flamethrower scene was part of Rick Dalton’s (DiCaprio) fictional movie-within-a-movie called “The 14 Fists of McCluskey,” which was also a reference to the fiery ending of Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.” The devastating weapon returned in the dramatic finale of “Once Upon a Time,” as well.
“That heat just wafted right back into my face. I started to get chronic headaches that day. I knew the flamethrower thing was coming back up again, but that was in the opener, thank God,” DiCaprio said.
Pitt, who played Dalton’s stunt double, Cliff Booth, had a laugh when he saw his co-star’s name on the call sheet for that day.
“It said ‘LDC flamethrower rehearsal,’” he said. “I was like, ‘Aww, that’s going to suck. That’s really going to suck.’” Read more and watch the video.