FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Entertainment

Quentin Tarantino Has Finally Cast Manson in 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'

Damon Herriman will play the infamous 1960s cult leader in 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.'
Photo via AP

Over the past few months, Quentin Tarantino has amassed an almost unwieldy amount of talent for his upcoming 60s LA epic set amid the Manson murders. He brought on Margot Robbie to play starlet and Manson victim Sharon Tate, and Dakota Fanning as Manson Family member Squeaky Fromme, and got Burt Reynolds to be the old guy who owned the ranch where the Family lived and shot guns and sewed vests made of their own hair. But as the actors piled on, one major role was left uncast—Manson himself.

Advertisement

Now, it looks like the mystery is over, squashing any speculation over whether Tarantino was planning to leave Manson out or play the cult leader himself in another terrible cameo. On Tuesday, the Wrap announced that Tarantino's Manson movie finally cast its Manson: Australian actor Damon Herriman.

Herriman is best known stateside for his supporting role in the FX series Justified, but the guy has built a successful career on Australian TV and Jesse Pinkman once hit him with a bong in an episode of Breaking Bad. At 48, Herriman is nearly a decade and a half older than Manson was at the time of the Tate-LaBianca murders, but the guy does bare a pretty strong resemblance to the cult leader, and Tarantino must really believe he's the man for the role, since apparently every actor in the world is leaping for a spot in the film.

Herriman photo by Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage. Manson image via Bettmann/Getty.

Herriman will star in the film alongside Robbie, Fanning, Reynolds, and—deep breath—Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Pacino and Kurt Russell and Timothy Olyphant and Tim Roth and Maya Hawke and James Marsden and Luke Perry and even goddamn Lena Dunham, and so, so, so many others.

The guy will now join the long and illustrious list of actors who have played Charles Manson, including Trey Parker, that guy from the 70s TV movie, and that other guy who was in LOST. It's unclear how large a role Manson will play in the film, though. For that, we'll have to wait until Once Upon a Time in Hollywood hits theaters next July.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow VICE on Twitter.