Jennifer Lawrence didn’t just lose a role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood quietly. According to Lawrence, the real reason (which floated around in 2017) was blunt and brutal. She was told that she wasn’t “pretty enough” to play Sharon Tate.
Back when Quentin Tarantino announced he was tackling the Manson murders, casting rumors went feral. Lawrence and Margot Robbie topped the list. Then Sharon Tate’s sister, Debra Tate, stepped in and shut it down publicly. “She’s not pretty enough to play Sharon,” Debra told TMZ. Her pick was Robbie, praising her “physical beauty” and the way she carried herself. It seems that comment might have an influence on who got cast.
Years later, Lawrence revisited the moment during an appearance at 92NY with interviewer Josh Horowitz. “Everybody was like: ‘She’s not pretty enough to play Sharon Tate,’” Lawrence said, adding, “I’m pretty sure it is true, or it’s that thing where I’ve been telling that story this way for so long that I believe it.” She also tossed out another possibility: “Or he just never was considering me for the part and the internet just went out of their way to call me ugly.”
Robbie landed the role and joined a cast that included Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Dakota Fanning. Debra Tate later visited the set and told Vanity Fair that watching Robbie perform “made me cry because she sounded just like Sharon.”
Here’s where it gets even messier. Tarantino later said Lawrence was never up for Sharon Tate. On a 2021 episode of WTF with Marc Maron, he explained Lawrence actually read for Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a Manson follower later jailed for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975. “She came down to the house to read the script,” Tarantino said. “She was interested in doing it, but something didn’t work out.”
Jennifer Lawrence’s Tarantino history already had one regret. She admitted she turned down the female lead in The Hateful Eight. “I turned it down, which I should not have done,” she said. That role went to Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Jennifer Lawrence has one more chance to land a role in a Tarantino film. QT is currently working on his final movie project as a director. Could Lawrence finally show up in the cast? Maybe.
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