Timothy Olyphant Thought ‘Adventures of Cliff Booth’ Director David Fincher’s Many Takes Were ‘Unnecessary’ Power Move

Cinephiles know that David Fincher is notorious for his many takes, having actors repeat their scenes over and over again to get the perfect performance. It’s a process that used to annoy Timothy Olyphant, who stars in Fincher’s forthcoming “The Adventures of Cliff Booth.”

But that changed when he started actually working with the Oscar nominee.

“I remember years ago, way back when, hearing the Fincher stories and thinking, ‘F–k that,’ you know? Just took offense to it,” Olyphant said on a Sunday episode of the “Talk Easy With Sam Fragoso” podcast.

“Because it sounded grueling. It sounded unnecessary. It sounded like it was some power move, you know, breaking down the actor,” Olyphant continued. “It was easy to say, ‘I’ll break myself down, thank you very much,’ you know what I mean? That kind of thing. Somewhere along the line, you get to a place — at least I felt like I got to a place where I’d show up to a set, and if I got a lot of notes early on, I was like, ‘You know, I did my homework too, and so let me show you.’”

Olyphant told Fragoso that something changed in him as an actor somewhere along the way. By the time he got tapped to work for Fincher in the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” sequel centered on Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth spinoff, he “couldn’t wait to get to set.”

“I couldn’t wait to do the 20 takes,” he told Fragoso. “I was like, ‘You want to go 20 takes? I’ll go 20 takes. I’ll go as many as, it’s a ball.’ You’re basically just saying, ‘You don’t need to come in for dinner. Just keep playing.’ That’s all you dream about, right?”

You can watch the full clip below:

Olyphant has talked about Fincher’s process a few times lately. The “Justified” star (who appears in “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” as James Stacy after playing the same part in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) went on the “Smartless” podcast Monday, where he similarly joked about the director’s infamous many-takes style.

“My favorite thing to do was, after we’d finished a take, before he said anything, I’d say, ‘Can I get one more? If I could just get one more,’” Olyphant recalled.