Margaret Qualley covers the latest issue of W Magazine. It’s not really FOR anything, especially given that Once Upon a Time In Hollywood’s promo ended more than a month ago. This works as more of a traditional “getting to know the ingenue” piece, the kind of introductory cover for the latest Hollywood It Girl. Is Qualley that It Girl? She’s 24 years old and she’s been working steadily for several years already, but suddenly it does feel like everybody is talking about her now. I want to believe that it’s mostly about her performance in Fosse/Verdon! Anyway, you can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
She loves wearing oversized hoodies & being completely covered-up: “I never wear anything revealing in real life. Even if it’s scorching, I don’t like to show any skin. I save that for movies.”
At first she was turned down for OUATIH, but then Tarantino asked her to audition with Brad Pitt: “I was like, yes! I was in Panama visiting my dad. It was all beach huts and no cell phone service, and my agent was frantically trying to reach me. I flew to L.A., met Quentin and Brad, and got the part!”
Tarantino loves her: “I had to lose a lot of wonderful scenes in the film,” Tarantino told me, “but I never cut or trimmed any of Margaret’s. She was the only person that I didn’t edit down.” In fact, he wrote more lines for her.
She followed Tarantino around: “Quentin said he couldn’t sleep and came in the next day with handwritten pages. We had to decipher his writing. It was so thrilling!” She followed Tarantino around with a notebook, writing down his thoughts or anything she found interesting on set. “At one point, Lena Dunham [another Manson girl in the film] asked Brad, ‘Do you ever play losers?’ And Brad said, ‘I do. But I always make them win.’” Qualley smiled. “Words to live by.”
Tarantino wanted furry legs, furry armpits & lots of feet: During the shoot, Qualley wasn’t bothered that Tarantino wouldn’t let the Manson girls shave their legs or their armpits, but she was dismayed by his fascination with feet. “Quentin wanted my weird-looking feet up on Brad’s fancy car’s dashboard,” she said, still cringing at the memory. “I kept trying to hide them, but he insisted.”
She wanted to be a dancer until she didn’t want it anymore: “When I was 12 or 13, I couldn’t imagine any other life than ballet. But at some point I started to hate it. All of a sudden, I fell in love with acting.”
She loved being Pussycat: It’s her role as Pussycat in Tarantino’s film that best captures her radiant-child exuberance. “I did like being that girl. I was even a little sad to shave my legs after the shoot was over.”
“Quentin wanted my weird-looking feet up on Brad’s fancy car’s dashboard. I kept trying to hide them, but he insisted.” Oh God. I mean, all in all, Tarantino’s foot fetish is pretty uneventful in the grand scheme of things. There are definitely creepier fetishes. At this point, I kind of think Tarantino enjoys having his foot fetish out there, so he can just openly hire actresses with feet he likes, and he can creepily demand more foot-shots in his films. Now I wonder if Margaret’s audition with Brad involved her taking off her shoes. What do you want to bet?
As for the rest of it… it’s all very brand-new ingenue stuff. She’s so new to “being a celebrity” that it’s all really fun and cool to her. I don’t get the “I never show skin in real life” thing though. Is it something about being pale? Or what?
Photos courtesy of W Magazine.
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