Leonardo DiCaprio & Brad Pitt Open Up About Working Together & Finding Their Way in Hollywood

Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino are on the cover of Esquire‘s Summer 2019 issue, out on June 4.

Here’s what the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood stars had to say…

Leonardo, on still having an appreciation for the struggle of finding your way in the industry: “My attitude is the same as when I started. When I talk to these two guys [Brad and Quentin], it’s like, we know we were given that one shot and we do not want to disrespect that opportunity, which is why we’re just trying the damn best we can to make the best things we can. Because we understand that it is fleeting. Tastes change; culture changes. And I feel very blessed to have gotten that ticket to be able to do movies. So I feel very connected to that fifteen-year-old kid who got his first movie. And that hasn’t changed.”

Brad, on his early days in Hollywood: “I remember back in the early days I hung out with Brandon Lee. He drove a hearse and lived in Echo Park. We went out one night and everyone else had peeled off, and we ended up back at his place and it was like six in the morning. A real, you know, drunk and stony night, and he proceeded that night to tell me how he thought he was going to die young like his dad. And I just chalked it up to, you know, stony 6:00 a.m. talk. And then he got The Crow the next year.”

Leonardo, on working with Brad: “In a weird way, when we were doing the movie, my relationship with Brad clicked. It was very early on where he improvised a line and it changed everything. In the scene, as it was written, I’m coming to set hungover. And I am basically getting my fate handed to me, discovering what my future is going to be in this industry. And I’m really down. And in the scene, Brad ad-libs; he just comes out with this line, he looks at me and says, ‘Hey, you’re Rick f–king Dalton. Don’t you forget that.’”

For more from Brad, Leonardo and Quentin, head to Esquire.com.