Brad Pitt was ‘volatile,’ combative on set, director says in new memoir
Brad Pitt could be “volatile” and “edgy” on the set of the 1994 Western romance “Legends of the Fall,” according to the film’s director, Edward Zwick.
Zwick’s new memoir, “Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood,” is being released next week, and the book’s publisher Vanity Fair shared some choice excerpts on Tuesday, including some critical comments about the actor.
Zwick writes that the star tried to back out after just the first table read.
“Brad wanted to quit,” he recalled, although the star was ultimately convinced to stay on the project.
“It fell to [producer] Marshall [Herskovitz] to talk Brad off the ledge,” Zwick wrote. “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, 71, added that he and Pitt, 60, often clashed over the amount of emotion needed for the character, claiming that when he pushed the actor to “reveal himself,” he often resisted.
Occasionally, Pitt “would get edgy whenever he was about to shoot a scene that required him to display deep emotion,” the director wrote.
In one instance, Zwick gave feedback to Pitt in front of the cast and crew, which allegedly set the actor off.
“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,” the director wrote.
More “dustups” followed, but the two were always able to make up afterwards. Zwick also complimented Pitt in his book, calling the actor “a forthright, straightforward person, fun to be with and capable of great joy. He was never anything less than fully committed to doing his best.”
Pitt’s yet to comment on the unflattering characterizations.
