Why Quentin Tarantino put Chris Pine’s grandmother in 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood'

Chris Pine attends TNT's "I Am The Night" EMMY For Your Consideration Event (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)
Chris Pine attends TNT's "I Am The Night" EMMY For Your Consideration Event (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)

Earlier this year, Quentin Tarantino revealed to the world that he was a huge fan of Chris Pine.

This only increased the expectation that Tarantino would one day oversee Pine as Captain Kirk in a Star Trek movie, but unfortunately that long touted rumour no longer looks like coming to fruition.

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However, it turns out that Pine and Tarantino have already formed quite a bond, as the legendary filmmaker is a huge fan of the actor’s grandmother Anne Gwynne. The actress appeared in dozens of films throughout the 1940s, including Men Of Texas and House Of Frankenstein.

During his recent appearance on J. Claude Deering’s podcast Things Are Going Great For Me, Pine reveals that he ran into Tarantino at Vanity Fair Oscar’s after-party, which he was attending with his mother, Gloria Gilford. Tarantino quickly brought up Gwynne, and Pine says that the filmmaker knew everything about her.

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino attends the 92nd Annual Academy Awards (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Writer-director Quentin Tarantino attends the 92nd Annual Academy Awards (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

“He knows film names, co-stars, directors, production designers, just unbelievable. So [he and my mother] ended up talking for about 40 minutes and I went off and got another martini.”

Then, last year, Pine called up his parents to discuss Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, only to receive the shock of a lifetime when his mother revealed that one of the films used in Tarantino’s latest film actually featured Gwynne.

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“I call my folks and ask them if they’d seen it. They saw it, loved it, and my mom says, ‘You know, that scene at the ranch [with Bruce Dern] and there’s a TV on?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I vaguely kind of remember this.’ But she said, ‘On the television is one of my mother’s films.’”

“So, I have yet to get in touch with [Tarantino], and my mother actually wrote me up an email that I was going to forward to him. Obviously, it’s so sweet of him and I’m assuming that was done on purpose. My mother was ecstatic, just over the moon.”