Roman Polanski’s pal read Once Upon a Time in Hollywood script to assure director film was OK

A friend of Roman Polanski became one of the few to read Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood script, so the exiled director would know the film didn’t exploit the Sharon Tate murder.
The actress was married to Polanski and expecting his son when she was brutally killed by members of Charles Manson’s cult The Family in 1969, and Tarantino wanted to make sure his fellow moviemaker would be OK about his film, which touches on the tragedy.
“When it comes to Roman Polanski, we’re talking about a tragedy that would be unfathomable for most human beings…,” the Pulp Fiction filmmaker tells Deadline. “I felt that the story of her death, and the Manson tragedy had moved into legit history, so it actually is of historical importance beyond just his own personal tragedy. So I felt I was on OK grounds there.
“I didn’t want to call him (Polanski) and talk to him while I was writing it because I’m not going to ask him permission. I’m going to do it… (but) I don’t think he needed any anxiety and I didn’t need any anxiety, as far as that was concerned.
“However, after it was finished, he got wind of it and he reached out through a mutual friend. That friend called me and said, so what’s up with this? He said that Roman wasn’t mad. He didn’t call up irate or anything. He was just curious…
“So what I did was… Roman’s obviously stuck in Europe. I had the friend come over and read the script. He came to my house. He read the script simply so he could call Roman up and tell him the idea and what’s in it. And basically that he didn’t have anything to worry about.”