Brad Pitt‘s role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood almost went to another very famous actor.

In a new interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, director Quentin Tarantino reveals he at one point reached out to Tom Cruise to play Pitt’s character. Pitt plays Cliff Booth, a stunt double for Leonardo DiCaprio‘s fading actor Rick Dalton.

“We talked about it,” Tarantino said of Cruise potentially taking the role. “He’s a great guy, and we really hit it off and it could happen on something else.”

Tarantino also gave insight on whether Pitt and DiCaprio, who had never worked together before this movie, were his first choices to play the actor-stuntman duo.

“The reality of it was, people ask, ‘Was it always these two guys?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, it’s the casting coup of the decade,'” Tarantino said. “You can’t count on that. They both have to respond to it, they both have to want to play they roles, they have to be available. There’s a whole lot of stuff there.”

“The reality is, I had maybe eight different pairings of actors that could go together in a realistic way in this situation,” Tarantino continued. “Now, the ones that I got were definitely my number ones.”

Tarantino also talked about the possibility of reuniting with Uma Thurman for a third Kill Bill on the podcast, saying he had actually brought it up with the star.

“Me and Uma have been actually [sic] talked about it recently, frankly, to tell you the truth,” Tarantino said. “I’m not sure if I’m going to do it, but I have thought about it a little further.”

The director continued, “And if any of my movies would be taken — me and Uma were literally talking about it last week — so if any of my movies were going to spring from one of my other movies, it would be the third Kill Bill.”

RELATED: Quentin Tarantino Says He and Uma Thurman Talked About a Possible Kill Bill: Volume 3

When asked if there was a character he thought about most often, Tarantino said, “I think the four that would qualify the most [would be] the Bride, Bill, Landa and Aldo,” referring to Thurman, 49, David Carradine, Christoph Waltz and Brad Pitt‘s characters, respectively.

“I wondered about what happens to the Bride, you know 10 years later, 15 years later, what happens to her daughter,” he said. “With Bill — none of these I’ve worked out scenarios for — but the whole Bill origin story has always entranced me with the idea of these three godfathers: Esteban Vihaio, the Mexican pimp; Hattori Hanzō and Pai Mei. And how he had to go through all three of those to become this diabolical Bill.”

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood opens Friday.

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