“That’s a fucking trifecta,” mentioned “One Battle After One other” author/director Paul Thomas Anderson, gesturing towards the lads who led the forged of his newest movieLeonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro — all present Oscar nominees.
The latest DGA Award winner got here out on Monday night to current his stars the Hammond Cinema Vanguard Award on the 2026 Santa Barbara Worldwide Movie Competitionin what Finest Actor nominee DiCaprio mentioned marked the top of their “One Battle After One other” press run.
Whereas each the filmmaker and the three actors are typically robust nuts to crack, being very particular about which interviews they do grant (for instance, Anderson is the one Finest Director nominee lacking from the pageant’s Excellent Administrators Award panel lineup), they did all loosen up on the Arlington Theatre stage alongside pageant director Roger Durling and Deadline journalist Pete Hammond, who moderated the occasion as one of many namesakes for the award (the opposite being his spouse, occasions producer Madelyn Hammond).
Closing the loop on a bit he began his speech off with, the place he handled the stage like a spherical of “The Relationship Recreation,” Anderson ended his awards presentation speech by saying, “When you like your film stars old school, with expertise, some thriller, some class, slightly little bit of unpredictable hazard, then listed below are three of a dying breed. So cherish them whereas they’re nonetheless right here, as a result of our provide of correct fucking film stars is operating a tad low.”
Placing the same tone, Durling, who has run SBIFF for over twenty years, began the occasion off by noting, “That is by far the most important evening within the historical past of the movie pageant.” Whereas every actor obtained their second within the highlight, the run of present was an abridged model of the usual tributes that SBIFF is thought for, with all three awardees seated on stage the whole time.
Each del Toro and Penn expressed resistance to watching their performances on display screen, with the latter saying, “I don’t need to go to the movie pageant and watch a scene with Sean Penn. I simply can’t do this, however I can watch and pay attention to actually good writing.” The 2 clips of himself he helped decide had been, fascinatingly, from “Hurlyburly” and “All of the King’s Males.”
DiCaprio had essentially the most to share about his earlier initiatives, with the spotlight being him crediting the late Adam Somner, the primary assistant director and govt producer of “One Battle After One other,” with being the individual to take Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” to the end line. “That was very daunting going into that entire movie. And Adam Somner, who labored on our movie really got here in and type of saved the day. I feel it was two thirds of the way in which by means of filming. We had been up in Alberta, Canada, the cameras had been freezing, crew members had been leaving,” he mentioned.
“The whole lot was throughout magic hour. So we’d have a complete rehearsal all day after which for one hour we’d shoot. So it was like a theater manufacturing each single day. And I imply, the scheduling couldn’t have gone extra awry, and there was mutiny in every single place,” mentioned the star, who would go on to win the Finest Actor Oscar for the movie. “And Adam Somner, who was the best first AD I’ve ever labored with, who labored with us on this movie — and it was his final movie — got here to save lots of the day, and there was completely no one like him on this business, and he can be sorely missed.”
DiCaprio additionally revealed that he’ll begin taking pictures Martin Scorsese’s subsequent movie “What Occurs at Night time” alongside Jennifer Lawrence in two weeks. Whereas he has not given up on plans to make a Frank Sinatra biopic with Scorsese as effectively, DiCaprio shot down the concept that he’d seem within the “As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood” comply with up teased throughout the Tremendous Bowl. “No secrets and techniques right here,” he joked.
The dialog with the three Academy Award-winning actors additionally went into a few of the viral moments from “One Battle After One other,” like del Toro’s “A couple of small beers line” delivered to cops that had pulled over his Sensei Sergio character.
“I didn’t need to mislead the cops. I feel that Sensei wouldn’t mislead the cops. So I simply embellished it,” he mentioned. Hammond additionally introduced up memes evaluating the destiny of just lately axed Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino to his character Colonel Lockjaw. “Charlie Chaplin’s loathing about Hitler started within the ’30s when Adolf Hitler stole his mustache. I see historical past repeats itself,” mentioned Penn in response.
In the end, on a extra critical be aware, DiCaprio summed up what it was prefer to see their movie, which options People taking revolutionary actions like liberating migrant detention facilities, communicate to the present politically charged second in the US, by giving the credit score to their director. “Paul wrote an extremely pertinent script that’s landed completely for this point in time that simply actually talks in regards to the divisiveness and the polarity of our nation and the world that we’re dwelling in, the truth that we are able to’t hear one another.”
The total panel is on the market on the Santa Barbara Worldwide Movie Competition YouTube web page.