Jay Glennie On His 10-Book Odyssey Documenting Quentin Tarantino Films

Margot Robbie (Sharon Tate) and writer-director Quentin Tarantino on the set of ‘Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood’

Courtesy of Insight Editions

To paraphrase Martin Brody’s famous line in Jaws: “You’re gonna need a bigger shelf.”

That’s Jay Glennie’s friendly warning to all film lovers as he preps for the release of his book on the making of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

“I’m a huge film book fan,” notes the author, who previously delivered highly-detailed accounts on Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, Performance, and Trainspotting. “I want to know the nuts and bolts, all the little details.”

His granular look at writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s lush love letter to ’60s-era Hollywood is certainly that, featuring never-before-seen interviews, images, and insights from Leonardo DiCaprio (Rick Dalton), Brad Pitt (Cliff Booth), Margot Robbie (Sharon Tate), and many, many more.

“Could we have done the book just with Quentin? Of course, we could. You know the dude, he’s got enough stories. But he really wanted to bring in as many of the other cast and crew that wanted [to be a part of it],” Glennie says. “All of them have got such wonderful and diverse memories … The huge connective tissue is that we’ve all got a love for Quentin and his films. It’s not like I’m on a press junket and they’re being told that they’ve gotta give me five minutes. This is a movie that’s very dear to their hearts. The time they spent with Quentin is very dear to their hearts, and we get the the luxury of spending a good couple of hours just chatting.”

Hitting shelves later this month by way of Insight Editions, the nearly 500-page tome is just one of 10 planned installments documenting the entire Tarantino filmography. “You’re going to have to reinforce your shelf,” Glennie recommends. “I really do want houses ruined [by] the set. When you get these 10 on the shelf, they’re literally going to come crashing down in the night. Unless you’ve got a huge coffee table or a reinforced shelf, these books are going to ruin a few houses.”

But why start with Tarantino’s most recent film and not his feature debut, Reservoir Dogs? “That’s just how mine and Quentin’s heads work,” Glennie explains. “It tickled our fancy.” It also helped that Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is one of Glennie’s “all-time favorite films. I mean, bloody hell, man, has there ever been a a film [that served] as a launch pad for so many great careers? Austin Butler, Mikey Madison, Julia Butters, Sydney Sweeney — it’s unbelievable.”

Interestingly, when he Tarantino began discussing the decade-long project, they both chose films involving drastic deviations from the historical record — the other, of course, being Inglourious Basterds.

“He’s such a great storyteller, and he’s got such a fertile imagination,” Glennie says of the director’s penchant for tweaking the tragic nature of reality in favor of happy endings. “The common denominator there is [the phrase] ‘Once Upon a Time…’ Basterds starts off with ‘Once upon a time… [in Nazi-occupied France], and obviously Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood does, too. So you already know you’re into Quentin’s world, you’re into Quentin’s version of events. Hitler and the architects of the Third Reich are gone and the Mansons don’t get to kill [Sharon Tate] and wreak mayhem. I know which alternative universe I’d rather live in.”

The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood will be followed by explorations of Inglorious Basterds (2026) and Django Unchained (2027), with “invites just going out for Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs,” Glennie reveals. “Effectively, one a year for the next 10 years. It’s a dream. I don’t take it lightly.”

As Tarantino, who is writing the introduction for each entry, once told Howard Stern, “I love my movies. I’m making them for me. Everyone else is invited.”

Glennie says a similar principle is driving the books, which “are only written for two people — Quentin and I. The idea being [that] if we got a kick out of them, surely there’s going to be some other film people that get a kick out of them.”

Thankfully, Tarantino’s review of the Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood deep dive was quite complimentary: “F—ING AMAZING!” (all in caps).

“It was like a balloon going down,” Glennie remembers. “I didn’t have a plan B. He had to like it. I was pretty confident he would, but there’s always that element [of doubt], isn’t there? You’re working with a perfectionist who quite rightly covets his films and makes sure that they’re only released as he wants them released. And there was me, chronicling 10 of his films. So that first one had to be great.”

While the collection will eventually include the director’s tenth (and supposedly final) movie, Glennie isn’t at liberty to discuss what he may or may not know about the hotly-anticipated swan song from one of the most important filmmakers of the modern era.

“No, I can’t,” the author says with a knowing smile. “You’re not getting me down that road, man. Good try, though.”

Whatever that closing cinematic argument ends up being, however, fans can rest assured that it will carry Tarantino’s wildly unique brand of storytelling.

“The word ‘auteur’ is used so often, but Quentin is the real cinephile auteur,” Glennie concludes. “Even if you don’t like what Quentin has released, you know it’s Quentin’s film. He’s never, ever been a gun for hire, and I just love that passion. Then you get to meet the guy, you spend time with him, and that passion is just coming out of every pore man. You’re running alongside him, trying to keep up.”

The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood goes on sale from Insight Editions Tuesday, October 28.