Jennifer Lawrence says she lost out on Tarantino role because she wasn’t pretty enough

Jennifer Lawrence attends the 35th Gotham Film Awards at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on December 1, 2025. (Dia Dipasupil/WireImage/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Jennifer Lawrence may have starred in box office smashes such as “The Hunger Games” and the “X-Men” franchise, but she has missed out on at least one major movie role — and this, she says, is down to her looks.

The Oscar-winner claims she was not cast in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 period drama “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” because people said she “wasn’t pretty enough.”

On the “Happy Sad Confused with Josh Horowitz” live podcast, released Monday, Lawrence discussed the list of filmmakers she wants to work with.

“Tarantino’s been chasing you. He wants you,” Horowitz said to Lawrence while pointing at her.

“I don’t know about that,” the actress responded.

“That’s true. No, he said that,” Horowitz insisted. “’Hateful Eight.’ The Jennifer Jason Leigh part was originally written for you, I believe.”

“I turned it down, which I should not have done,” Lawrence interjected, before they both laughed.

Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly in 2015 that he was a “huge Jennifer Lawrence fan” and had approached her about playing the fugitive Daisy Domergue in the 2015 mystery thriller “The Hateful Eight,” but Lawrence was too busy with “all this publicity on the ‘Hunger Games’ movies.”

“And I think ‘Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood,’ too, didn’t he want you?” asked Horowitz.

“Well, he did and then everybody was like, ‘She’s not pretty enough to play Sharon Tate,’ and then they didn’t,” Lawrence said.

After a sympathetic reaction from the crowd, she continued, “I know.”

Unconvinced, Horowitz said, “That’s not true.”

To which Lawrence responded, “I’m pretty sure it is true. Or it’s that thing where I’ve been telling this story this way for so long that I believe it. No, but I — I’m pretty sure that happened — or, he just never was considering me for the part and the internet just, like, went out of their way to call me ugly.”

Margot Robbie was cast to play Sharon Tate in the film, based on the real-life actress and model who was a victim of the 1969 Manson Murders.

Months ahead of the movie release, Tate’s sister, Debra, told TMZ that she would prefer Margot Robbie for the role over Lawrence because of Robbie’s “physical beauty, and the way she even carries herself is similar to that of Sharon,” adding that Lawrence is “not pretty enough to play Sharon. That’s a horrible thing to say but, you know, I have my standards.”

Rather than casting her as Sharon Tate, Tarantino said in 2021 on the “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast that he had “investigated the idea of Jennifer Lawrence playing Squeaky,” a follower of Charles Manson. He added that she went to his house and read a script but, in the end, “it didn’t work out, but she’s a very nice person and I respect her as an actress.” The role was played by Dakota Fanning.

Later on Horowitz’s podcast, Lawrence said, deadpan, that she auditioned for “Twilight” but “didn’t get that ‘cause I guess I was too ugly.”

By Amarachi Orie, CNN