Brad Pitt is regarded as one of the finest actors in the entertainment industry and is also one of the most influential people in the world. The actor gained recognition for portraying a cowboy hitchhiker in Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise for which he was appreciated by the viewers and the critics.

The actor went on to star in leading roles in 1992’s A River Runs Through It and 1994’s Legends of the Fall. Brad Pitt starred alongside Tom Cruise in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire. Over the years, Pitt has become one of the highest-paid actors in the industry with successful movies. It has recently been known that Pitt took over Cruise’s role in Legends of the Fall after the latter decided to drop out of the project due to the character’s ethics.

Ed Zwick reflects on directing Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall

In his upcoming memoir titled Hits, Flops and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood, filmmaker Ed Zwick reflects upon directing Brad Pitt in 1994’s Legends of the Fall. The excerpt published by Vanity Fair mentions the filmmaker writing how the movie was in a ‘limbo’ after Tom Cruise decided to drop out of the project. He writes,

“I never gave up hope on getting Legends made, however and was always looking for the right actor to play Tristan. Brad Pitt had a genuine passion for the script and a strong attraction to the character. Growing up in a rural Missouri, he had known men like Tristan, he said. When he left the meeting, I felt I had found the right actor. I was more determined than ever to push it over the line.”

The filmmaker however recalls that Pitt’s feelings toward the movie changed after the first table read and he received a call from Pitt’s agent stating that he wanted to quit the movie. Zwick wrote the producer Marshall Herskovitz was talking him off the ledge. The filmmaker continued,

“Sometimes, no matter how experienced or sensitive you are as a director, things just aren’t working. You think the actor is being oppositional, while he finds you dictatorial.”

Ed Zwick explained that some actors have a problem with authority but the directors are threatened when intelligent actors tend to ask challenging questions to them as it goes on to reveal that they weren’t prepared enough. He said both are right and both are wrong with adding that Pitt’s anxiety about the movie never went away. The director in his memoir noted that Pitt seemed easygoing initially but can be volatile when riled up.

Zwick however noted that the crew had grown accustomed to their dustups but both of them would make up after blow up adding that none of it came from a personal space. Talking about Tom Cruise’s decision to drop out of the project, Zwick mentioned that the actor refused to the part of the project as he did not align with the ‘character’s ethics’.

Brad Pitt was not pleased with the final cut of Ed Zwick’s Legends of the Fall

Further in his memoir, the filmmaker noted that the actor upon seeing the final cut of the movie; wasn’t pleased noting that he felt that he had underplayed the character’s madness. Zwick wrote in his memoir via Vanity Fair,

“I had in fact cut only a single shot from the scene where Tristan is raging with fever, screaming as the waves wash over him on the schooner. But it was a shot he dearly loved and it would have been little enough to leave it in, and I should have. Apologies, Brad.”

Pitt had mentioned in an interview that at the time of filming, he was struggling with a lot of his stuff that he took out on the filmmaker adding that he was not a delightful human being to be around at the time. Legends of the Fall upon its release received positive reviews from the critics as well as the audience along with the performances being appreciated. Legends of the Fall was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Sound at the 67th Academy Awards and managed to win an award for Best Cinematography. 

Legends of the Fall wasn’t the only movie by which Pitt wasn’t pleased but Interview With a Vampire also didn’t seem to please the actor. During an interview with EW, Pitt admitted that he was miserable when he was filming and he wanted to quit. He said,

“I’m telling you, one day it broke me. It was like, life’s too short for this quality of life. I called David Geffen, who was a good friend. He was a producer and he’d come to visit. I said, ‘David, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do it. What will it cost me to get out? And he goes very calmly, ‘Forty million dollars’.”

Pitt added that listening to that had taken away the anxiety from him and he thought that he needed to man up and ride this through and that is what he did.