Turns Out, Quentin Tarantino’s Charles Manson Is Also David Fincher’s Charles Manson

Night before last, we learned that Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had finally found its Charles Manson in Damon Herriman, an actor perhaps best known for his work on FX's Justified. How much or how little Manson will factor into Tarantino's film remains to be seen, but hey - if nothing else, Tuesday's casting announcement finally put to rest any debate as to whether or not Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would actually include one of history's most notorious cult leaders.

And now there's an interesting wrinkle: turns out, Damon Herriman has already played Charles Manson. We just haven't seen his performance yet.

Here's the news, via the good folks at Collider:

"Collider has exclusively learned that David Fincher already cast Herriman as Manson in the upcoming second season of Netflix’s Mindhunter...

Sources say that while Herriman will appear as a 1969-era Manson in the Tarantino film, his appearance in Mindhunter will be in the ’80s, when Manson was already behind bars. That lines up with previous reports that the second season will feature the Atlanta Child Murders, which took place between 1979 and 1981."

That's right: according to Collider, Herriman was hired to play Charles Manson on David Fincher's Mindhunter, Netflix's outstanding serial killer drama. We don't know when that show's second season will air, obviously (and in grand Netflix tradition, we probably won't until it's very close to arriving), but now we know Herriman will be playing a much older Charles Manson in it, which - as Collider points out - seems to confirm the rumor that season two will be set in the late '70s/early '80s. Interesting!

Needless to say, it's unusual for one actor to portray the same person in two different time periods for two different directors (mental note: ask Brian Collins if this has ever happened before; if anyone's in possession of that incredibly niche bit of trivia, it's Collins), much less two directors of Fincher and Tarantino's stature. Whatever Herriman's doing with his Manson portrayal, it must be something special. 

Anyway, that's all for now. Stay tuned for more on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the second season of Mindhunter as further updates become available.