Jennifer Lawrence said in a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that she missed out on playing Sharon Tate opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood because internet critics told her she wasn’t “pretty enough.” Margot Robbie won the role.
Josh Horowitz, host of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, recalled that Tarantino once expressed interest in working with Lawrence and having her play Tate in the film, to which the Oscar winner responded,
“I’m convinced that’s true,” Lawrence continued (via Entertainment Weekly). “Or that’s what I believe because I’ve been telling this story for this long. No, but I’m sure that’s what happened. Or the internet just went out of its way to call me ugly because he never considered me for the role.”
Tarantino appeared on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast in 2021 and revealed that he was “flirting” with the idea of having Lawrence star in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but at the time he was only interested in casting Lawrence as Manson Girl Squeaky From.
“I couldn’t be happier with Dakota Fanning’s performance. It’s one of the best performances in the movie. She’s great as Squeaky From. She becomes her. But early on, we considered the idea of Jennifer Lawrence playing Squeaky,” Tarantino admitted. “So she read it and we talked about it a little bit afterwards… Something didn’t work out… but she’s a very nice person and I respect her as an actress.”
It turns out this isn’t the first time Tarantino has courted Lawrence, who also revealed on his Happy Sad Confused podcast that he turned down an offer to play the battered Daisy in The Hateful Eight. This role was played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
“I said no,” Lawrence said. “(It) shouldn’t have happened.”
As for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, rumors that Lawrence and Robbie were competing for the role of Sharon Tate were widespread enough at the time that Tate’s sister Debra released a statement to TMZ saying she supports Robbie in the role.
“They’re both very good actresses, but I have to say my choice is Margot,” Debra said at the time. “Simply because of her physical beauty and the way she carries herself, it’s similar to that of Sharon. I don’t think much of Jennifer Lawrence. I don’t have anything against her. I just, I don’t know, she’s not beautiful enough to play Sharon. As awful as it sounds, I have my own standards.”
In an interview with Vanity Fair after the film’s release, Debra praised Robbie’s portrayal of Sharon, saying, “She made me cry because she looked so much like Sharon. Her tone of voice was totally Sharon, and I was so moved (so many tears started flowing down my face). The front of my shirt was wet. I actually got to see my sister again…almost 50 years later.”
You can watch Lawrence’s full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in the video below.
