Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds represent different ways of occupying the screen. Approaching them through Tarantino makes it possible to talk about presence, career and cinephile memory without turning three different actors into a single model of masculinity.
Steve McQueen: the aspiration to be a star
McQueen occupies a visible place in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: he appears both as a real figure in the industry and as a reference for Rick Dalton’s ambitions. The film allows us to observe the distance between having a recognisable career and attaining a star quality that seems to turn any appearance into an event.
In his interview with Kim Morgan published by New Beverly in September 2019, Tarantino explained that Rick brought together references from several television and film performers. That explanation prevents us from identifying him as an exact portrait of McQueen. The character also expresses the frustration of someone who sees other careers move ahead and does not fully understand why his own has stalled.
McQueen’s presence in films such as Bullitt allows us to study a type of charisma based on restraint. The viewer’s attention can focus on how he looks, waits or carries out a task. A brief response gains weight because the actor does not seem to need to fill every silence. The character keeps part of himself beyond explanation.
That effect does not amount to a lack of acting. Managing stillness requires the body to keep communicating attention. The economy of gesture can suggest experience and self-control, but also distance. As a critical reading, it helps explain why McQueen’s figure can function as an aspiration for other actors within a story about Hollywood.
Clint Eastwood and the authority of a recognisable figure
In the interview published by El Pais Semanal on 27 May 2007, Tarantino included the Eastwood of A Fistful of Dollars among the film heroes he respected. The reference is tied to a character and a film, which is more precise than attributing to him an indiscriminate approval of all the choices in the actor’s career.
Leone’s gunman works with a restrained voice, a calculating look and a particular relationship with space. He can seem motionless while he sizes up what is happening. The wait does not imply passivity: it prepares an action that the audience anticipates without knowing exactly when it will arrive. That promise of competence is part of the star’s appeal.
In Eastwood’s films of the 1970s, that authority can shift into different settings and become more problematic. Dirty Harry, for example, turns the protagonist’s efficiency into an issue that also raises questions about power and limits. Describing that tension does not require presenting his methods as a political position Tarantino has adopted.
The action figure has force because it allows a behaviour to be recognised before it is explained. However, each film can use that familiarity differently: confirming it, hardening it or putting it into crisis. Reducing Eastwood to a single pose would prevent us from seeing how the same presence acquires different meanings according to the conflict.
Burt Reynolds: proximity, stories and the memory of the craft
Tarantino’s relationship with Burt Reynolds even included preparation for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Reynolds died in 2018 before filming his participation, and Bruce Dern ultimately played George Spahn. It should not be said that there was a completed scene with Reynolds that forms part of the released film.
In the 2019 interview with Morgan, Tarantino recalled his conversations with Reynolds and the pleasure of asking him about people he had worked with. The relationship brought together admiration and curiosity about the craft. The actor could provide memory of television and of an industry the director was trying to reconstruct.
Reynolds’s charisma offers a useful contrast with the reserve of McQueen and Eastwood. His smile, his easy rapport and the impression that he is enjoying a situation can draw the audience closer in a different way. In his action comedies, that closeness allows skill to appear without always being wrapped in solemnity.
The possibility of laughing at a difficulty also changes the relationship with risk: the character can remain appealing when something goes wrong. The star does not need to sustain an image of absolute invulnerability every minute.
Deliverance shows, in turn, that this physical confidence can enter a world it does not control. A recognisable star does not guarantee that adventure will obey him. The tension between confidence and vulnerability helps explain the richness of these actors when a film uses their image without merely repeating it.
In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the friendship between Rick and Cliff brings work, reputation and bodily presence together within a single relationship. They are not copies of a specific historical pair. The film examines how an industry distributes visibility between the person who appears on screen and the person who supports part of that image through physical work.
These stars coexist in Tarantino’s cinephilia with character actors such as Aldo Ray and Ralph Meeker. The difference matters: a history of cinematic charisma does not end with the names at the top of the bill. A supporting face, a voice or a brief scene can leave a memory as lasting as the entrance of a major star.
See the selection of filmmakers and actors admired by Tarantino.