The road from “professional actor” to “movie star” is different for everybody. There isn’t always a single role that marks the transition from one to the other, but with Brad Pitt‘s career, one cannot discount the importance that Legends of the Fall had for him. It was one of his earliest breakout roles, but it almost didn’t happen because the director says that Pitt nearly quit the movie.
Director Ed Zwick, whose credits include Glory and The Last Samurai has written a new memoir, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions, and in an excerpt published by Vanity Fair, Zwick recounted that directing Brad Pitt on Legends of the Fall was a difficult process, for both of them, from start to finish. It started with the table read of the script, where Zwick says a producer had to step in to keep the actor from quitting. He explained…
I could see Brad’s growing discomfort as it went on. Hours afterward, his agent called the studio to say Brad wanted to quit. It fell to [producer] Marshall [Herskovitz] to talk Brad off the ledge. It was never mentioned again, but 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.
The role of Tristan was considered by Tom Cruise, but Zwick says the star ultimately passed, leading to Pitt taking the part. It seems the battles between Zwick and Pitt that began at the table read continued throughout production. While the director is willing to accept some of the blame, though it’s unclear whose fault Brad Pitt’s butt makeup was, he says that the two men had very different views of the character, which led to some real blow-ups. Zwick continues…
There are all sorts of reasons an actor might pick a fight. Most likely he’s afraid. Insecurity manifests as arrogance and fear precipitates bad behavior — on the director’s part as well as the actor’s. Brad would get edgy whenever he was about to shoot a scene that required him to display deep emotion. It was here that his ideas about Tristan differed from mine. Brad had grown up with men who held their emotions in check; I believed the point of the [‘Legends of the Fall’] novel was that a man’s life was the sum of his griefs. […] Yet the more I pushed Brad to reveal himself, the more he resisted. So, I kept pushing and Brad pushed back.
Ed Zwick says that there were regular fights between the two of them that often involved swearing and throwing chairs, though it’s unclear exactly who was doing the swearing and who was throwing the chairs. Zwick does fall on his sword regarding a particular shot during Tristan’s fever scene that Zwick decided to cut, which Pitt didn’t appreciate. The director now agrees he should have left it in.
In the end, while the process may have been tough, it was worth it for Brad Pitt. Legends of the Fall and Interview with the Vampire both came out in 1994, and by the end of it, Brad Pitt was a huge star. Legends of the Fall would go on to inspire Channing Tatum, in a movie where Bitt appeared. It’s still one of the actor’s most swoon-worthy performances.
Upcoming Brad Pitt movies include being seen alongside his old friend George Clooney in the 2024 movie release Wolfs.