Behind the charismatic face and the prowess he holds while acting, Brad Pitt can be a very different man. While filming Legends of the Fall— the movie rejected by Tom Cruise due to his conflicting ethics with the character— director Edward Zwick discovered the dark side of Pitt.
Pitt can be volatile, The Last Samurai director who has several acclaimed and popular titles under his belt, did not hesitate to reflect on his experience of working with Pitt in the $160.6 million Western movie.
Edward Zwick Exposed One Dark Side Of Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt is certainly one of the most popular stars in Hollywood, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that he has been a pop culture phenomenon for more than a decade. However, the true nature of the star may differ from how fans perceive the actor. Legends of the Fall director Edward Zwick explained his experience of working with the actor citing that the relationship was conflicting since day one. After the table read of the script, as the director wrote in his memoir, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood published by Vanity Fair, an agent of Pitt called him to reveal, “to say Brad wanted to quit.”
“It fell to [producer] Marshall [Herskovitz] to talk Brad off the ledge. It was the first augury of the deeper springs of emotion roiling inside Brad. He seems easygoing at first, but he can be volatile when riled, as I was to be reminded more than once as shooting began and we took each other’s measure,” Zwick wrote in his memoir.
Pitt played the title character, Tristan Ludlow in the movie which was based on Jim Harrison’s celebrated 1978 novel of the same name. However, Zwick experienced something different and fans can resemble similar behavior with his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, which allegedly led to their split in 2016.
Edward Zwick Revealed That Brad Pitt Was Very Hard To Work With
Not any significant complaints came from other directors against Pitt but Jack Reacher: Never Go Back director was not going to keep the secrets from the set in the closet. “Sometimes, no matter how experienced or sensitive you are as a director, things just aren’t working,” Zwick continued. Also, the Oscar winner “would get edgy whenever he was about to shoot a scene that required him to display deep emotion.” His ideas about Tristan “differed from mine,” Zwick added. Yet the more “I pushed Brad to reveal himself, the more he resisted. So, I kept pushing and Brad pushed back.” In a confrontation, Zwick candidly admits that his loud direction to the star before the crew was not very nice. “Brad came back at me, also out loud, telling me to back off,” Zwick revealed.
“The considered move would have been to tell the crew to take five and for the two of us to talk it out. But I was feeling bloody-minded, and not about to relent. I was angry at Brad for not trusting me to influence his performance… Who knows, I might even have been acting out my own inability to be vulnerable. But Brad wasn’t about to give in without a fight. In his defense, I was pushing him to do something he felt was either wrong for the character, or more ‘emo’ than he wanted to appear onscreen. I don’t know who yelled first, who swore, or who threw the first chair. Me, maybe? But when we looked up, the crew had disappeared. And this wasn’t the last time it happened. Eventually, the crew grew accustomed to our dustups and would walk away and let us have it out. ‘We hate it when the parents fight,’ said one.”
However, the actor-director duo have resolved their on-set issues. “Pitt is a forthright, straightforward person, fun to be with and capable of great joy,” Zwick wrote of the actor. He was never “anything less than fully committed to doing his best.” Legends of the Fall is available to stream on Netflix.
