'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood': Watch Leonardo DiCaprio ad lib about precocious co-star in deleted scene

There's a profound sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where fading TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) meets Trudi Fraser (Julia Butters), his 8-year-old co-star in what is yet another of his thankless guest spots on other peoples' shows.

Trudi is wise beyond her years —already a method actor, reading the biography of Walt Disney — and comforts Rick when his description of his own reading material (a Western about a washed-up cowboy) brings him to self-realising tears.

The 10-year-old Butters, whom Tarantino discovered while watching the ABC sitcom American Housewife of all things, is a revelation, both in Dalton's eyes and anyone who's seen the Pulp Fiction filmmaker's much-hyped latest film, which is coming soon to digital.

In a deleted scene from the release (watch exclusively above), Dalton talks to show lead Sam Wanamaker (Nicholas Hammond) about the ingénue he's just encountered — an exchange that was improvised between DiCaprio and Hammond.

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"She's really 8 years old?" Dalton asks Wanamaker?

"I coulda sworn she had some kinda growth deficiency or something. Those things that were coming out of her mouth."

"No," laughs Wanamaker. "We didn't get her off the Wizard of Oz set. She wasn't one of the munchkins."

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is coming to DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital Download in the UK soon.

Watch the trailer: