When you have a top-secret film like Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it’s sometimes hard to pitch what the idea of a movie actually is. Sometimes, in the journalism business, you have to run with the details you do have, and the big details that have been known since almost the very beginning is that it would feature Charles Manson in a key role. So, for well over a year, that’s how it’s been pitched — as Tarantino’s Manson movie.

“That’s one of the big misconceptions to clarify,” producer David Heyman told EW in a recent preview of the flick. Yes, the movie does feature Charles Manson in it, and it even features eventual Manson family victim Sharon Tate in a big way (played by Margot Robbie), but that’s only one piece of a tapestry, and it’s all in service of a much bigger message.

“It’s about the loss of innocence that came about in 1969 with the Manson family,” producer Shannon McIntosh said. Heyman embellished on that idea, saying:

“[Sharon Tate] has been mythologized in some way through the murders but we get to see her as a person and we get to see her delight and enthusiasm and her sweetness. She represents an innocence and innocence lost in some way, and that innocence is very much — that sweetness, that goodness, that delight with the movies, with her, with her life — is something that we experience.”

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And if you’re worried that Tate’s part in the story would be exploitative, it doesn’t sound like that will be the case, as Sharon’s sister Debra signed off on the picture.

McIntosh said:

“[Robbie] wanted to honor Sharon’s memory and she really drilled down to make sure that she got the best performance and was really embracing all that Sharon was. [Tarantino] absolutely embraced Debra Tate, and that was very important to him and to us that she’d be comfortable with what we’re doing because obviously anyone thinking that we’re making it a Manson movie, which we’re not, but he was very sensitive to that and remains sensitive to that.”

And even Tate’s role is just one part of a bigger puzzle.

“It’s the three classes of Hollywood,” Heyman said. “There’s the high Hollywood of Sharon, the declining star of Rick (played by DiCaprio), and there’s Cliff (played by Pitt), who lives farther out and with more humble means.”

All in all, it looks to be a story about the different aspects of the Hollywood business in the late-60s. What do you think of these comments? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: EW