Hair: James Pecis at Bryant Artists. Make-up: Dick Page at Statement. Set design: Ian Salter at Frank Reps. Manicure: Alicia Torello at Bridge. Digital tech: Jarrod Turner. Photographic assistants: Dylan Garcia, Tom Maltbie and Ariel Sadok. Styling assistant: Marcus Cuffie. Hair assistant: D’Angelo Alston. Set-design assistants: Russell Mangicaro and Robert Forbes. Production: Hen’s Tooth Productions
It was the first day of filming at a ranch in the Simi Valley, a stand-in for Spahn Ranch, where Manson infamously devised the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders that, as Joan Didion famously wrote in The White Album, brought an end to the Sixties. Dogs prowled the perimeter: Tarantino was insistent they be visible in every shot, to approximate the rangy, pseudo-beatnik vibe of life in a cult. The then 23-year-old Qualley was nervous, of course, and focused on getting through the scene without flubbing her lines in front of her co-star Pitt, who was playing languorous stuntman Cliff Booth.
But Qualley had this urge. Pussycat is a louche, free-loving, hitch-hiking hippy chick with LSD-dipped cigarettes in her back pocket. She does what she wants and thinks social norms are a drag. She’s all uncontrolled id in denim cut-offs and a halter top. Pussycat would do something off-key in this situation, Qualley just knew it. Like? Stick her tongue out at Cliff. A halfleering, half-promiscuous gesture. Jarring, but also an invitation.
Qualley thought about it but ruled it out. “I thought, I better not do that,” she recalls. “Who am I to take up that space? This is my first day on the job, this is Brad Pitt and Tarantino. What the fuck am I doing? I better just obey.”
Afterwards Tarantino beckoned her over. He asked Qualley: was there something you wanted to do in that scene that you didn’t do? “How did he fucking know that?” Qualley wonders. “I was blown away.”
And with that, Tarantino gave Qualley permission to lean into the sheer weirdness of her role. She did indeed loll her tongue at Pitt in the next take, and it became one of the stand-out moments of a stand-out film, earning Qualley rave reviews for what might have been, in the hands of another actor, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role.
“You forget that you’re supposed to be messy,” she says. “You’re supposed to take up all the space and make all the mistakes, and you’re supposed to do the thing you feel. But
