Being that so much of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” centers around Rick Dalton’s (Leonardo Dicaprio) and Cliff Booth’s (Brad Pitt) run-ins with the kinds of stars, big and small, who would have populated the television and movie landscape at the time, it’s easy to see why Quentin Tarantino would want someone who knows that world inside and out to be the overseer of the story.

“So, he really knows how authentic I am or not in the course of this piece,” Tarantino explained. “He’s also the son of a Western character actor, so that was his life too. There’s almost nobody that Kurt didn’t work with at one point or other in his career,” the director went on.

Indeed, Russell has over 100 acting credits to his name, and his roles stretch all the way back to 1962. Furthermore, he has had dozens of parts on television, many of which were on shows just like “Lancer,” the series that Rick Dalton nabs a guest spot on as a sinister, child-kidnapping villain.

“I find some interesting actor on some show that did something interesting, and I wasn’t quite familiar with the guy, and I look him up, and it turns out that, like, him and Kurt had a TV show together!” Tarantino continued. “‘This guy?’ ‘Oh, that guy?'” he recalls Kurt saying. “‘Let me tell you about that guy.'”