Soon after Angelina Jolie took the kids and filed for divorce from Brad Pitt, Hollywood rallied around Pitt. Brad booked a big job – a role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the role of Cliff Booth would end up earning Brad his Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Pitt enjoyed the role so much, he’s done a “spinoff” Cliff Booth movie for Netflix, directed by David Fincher. Well, as it turns out, Brad was an idiot during the OUATIH filming (big surprise). There are several scenes in the film set at the Spano Ranch, where Charles Manson’s “family” lived and planned all of their BS. Tarantino reimagines the actual history so that Cliff checks in on George Spano, played by Bruce Dern. Well, Dern was in Cannes this week to support his documentary (a doc about his life and work), and he told a story about his scene with Brad.

Bruce Dern is reflecting on his long career, including the many iconic films, directors, and actors he’s worked with over more than 65 years in the industry. The 89-year-old actor spoke to PEOPLE at Cannes Film Festival, where he is currently premiering director Mike Mendez’s documentary Dernsie, named after a signature improvised line or moment Dern adds to his performances.

The actor reminisced on a particularly “good dernsie” while shooting Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, in which he plays the blind, elderly ranch owner George Spahn. The movie centers around struggling actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), who found success in Westerns but is having a hard time adjusting to new Hollywood and, as a result, spends most of his time with his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

In Dern’s scene, Cliff stops by the ranch to check in on George, who hardly recognizes him.

“When Brad Pitt wakes me up in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, I’m in the bed and I get up and I’m a little groggy and stuff and I just say, ‘I’m not really sure what’s going on,’ ” Dern described of the improvised moment. “I’m looking at him. [Pitt] cut the camera. He cut the camera. The look on Quentin’s face — I mean, he was insanely grave — and he said, ‘Brad, what did you just do?’ ”

Dern continued, “He said, ‘Well, I cut the camera.’ He said, ‘Never again in your life will you ever cut a camera or you’ll be dead in this business. That’s my domain. Don’t stop behavior.’ So then we went on and did the scene and all Brad did was say to him, ‘Well, that wasn’t in the script what he said.’ ”

Dern recalled that the two went on filming, and he improvised a new line: “I don’t know who you are, but you touched me today. You came to visit me, now I gotta go back to sleep.”

Noting that the “touched me” line was the “dernsie,” he said the idea came from when DiCaprio and Pitt told him, “You’re going to be in my movie no matter what.” “They did that, and that touched me. So that’s where that stuff comes from,” he explained. “There’s always a little background of something that’s real, and I don’t rehearse it because I don’t know it until we’re actually doing it.”

[From People]

Imagine being Brad Pitt, who was then in his early 50s, and doing a scene with a legend like Bruce Dern and you can’t handle it when Dern improvises a line!! What are we doing? What is Hollywood doing? I thought all of these actors were supposed to be super-Method and driving themselves crazy to stay in character? And Brad Pitt can’t even react in character to an improvised line from Bruce Dern? And to cut the camera?? I bet Tarantino was shocked and appalled. Also: Dern sort of makes Brad sound like a dolt. It’s very funny.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.