Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was akin to a fairytale experience for a lot of the young actors involved. Among them, Austin Butler was perhaps the luckiest of them all. He was working with Denzel Washington when he got the call to audition, walked out of the room with the role in hand, and rejected Tom Cruise while at it – all in the span of a single day.
In hindsight, Butler’s role in the Tarantino film paid off. Ironically, it was Tex Watson, the part-time cowboy, part-time serial killer, and full-time hippie, who shot him to Hollywood stardom.
At the time, however, when Butler walked into that audition room in Los Angeles, which quickly turned into an actors’ workshop with the filmmaker, he hadn’t known the course of events that would unfold over the course of the next few years – beginning with turning down Top Gun: Maverick because he “got that part” in a QT film. [Rolling Stone]
Austin Butler Dropped Top Gun: Maverick Role to Play a Serial Killer
This particular series of events began in 2017 when an early draft of a Top Gun sequel came across the desk of director Joseph Kosinski, who then flew to Paris to meet Tom Cruise and pitch the idea in between shots of filming Mission: Impossible – Fallout. (The Filmmakers Podcast)
In the landslide of events that followed after Cruise came on board and the studio’s subsequent green signal, Austin Butler was one of the actors set to audition as one of the younglings in the film. Unfortunately, it coincided with when the Elvis actor was in LA to audition for Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time.
However, Butler did not have to prioritize one over the other. It was an impossible choice to begin with: a Quentin Tarantino film vs. Tom Cruise’s Top Gun sequel. Unwittingly, he missed the window of auditioning for the latter while trying to nail down the former.
Given how everything turned out, one cannot help but believe in the Aristotelian principle that everything happens for a reason. After all, one can hardly imagine anyone other than Butler playing the quietly unnerving and menacingly crazy Tex Watson in the period homage to the land of cinema.
On the other hand, it does make one wonder which role Butler would have landed, if any at all, in Top Gun: Maverick. It is hard to separate Miles Teller or Glen Powell from their iconic versions of Rooster and Hangman, respectively.
Austin Butler Recounts the Disastrous Aftermath of His Tarantino Audition
While all was good in Quentin Tarantino’s audition-turned-actors’ workshop dreamland, Austin Butler’s agents were nearly having a fit 3000 miles away in New York.
In a comprehensive recollection of the events that unfolded that day in Los Angeles, author Jay Glennie reveals how Butler’s obliviousness about the day’s schedule led to a disastrous aftermath.
The following excerpt, taken from The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has been condensed for clarity.
With the clock kissing 9 p.m., his cell phone was returned to him, and he made his way into the Los Angeles night. After he switched on his phone, it immediately began to light up with a chain of missed calls, text messages, and voicemails.
The realization hit him: He had missed the other appointments his agency had booked for him […] including one for Top Gun: Maverick with Joseph Kosinski. Listening to the last message, Butler detected fear in the voice on the other end of the line: They were on the verge of sending out search parties and contacting the LAPD to check on any car accidents that day.
When he finally called his agents back after that last panic-laced voicemail, he was confronted with: “Where are you? Are you OK? You missed all of your other auditions today!” To Butler’s delight, he replied: “I’m sorry, but I got that part. I am going to be doing the movie with Quentin.”
There are not many times in an actor’s career when they get to say that to their agents, especially with Tarantino on the verge of retiring.
Below is a list of all essential details about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood:
Would you have preferred to witness Austin Butler in Top Gun: Maverick as well? If so, in which role? Let us know in the comments below.
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is currently streaming on fuboTV.
