Brad Pitt has been accused of ‘volatile’ behavior on set of his 1994 Western film Legends Of The Fall by director Ed Zwick.
In an excerpt from his new memoir, ‘Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood’, Zwick, 71, discussed his rocky relationship with the Hollywood heartthrob, 60.
The filmmaker wrote that Pitt ‘can be volatile when riled’, as per excerpt published by Vanity Fair, and ‘would get edgy whenever he was about to shoot a scene that required him to display deep emotion.’
He recalled one of their on set ‘dustups’ writing: ‘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.’
A spokesperson for Pitt declined to comment when contacted by DailyMail.com on Tuesday.
Brad Pitt, 60, has been accused of ‘volatile’ behavior on set of his 1994 Western film Legends Of The Fall by director Ed Zwick, 71; Pitt seen in a still from Legends Of The Fall
The filmmaker wrote that Pitt ‘can be volatile when riled’ in an excerpt from his new memoir; Pictured in 2023
Pitt was cast in the role of Tristan Ludlow after Tom Cruise dropped out, though his agent allegedly called Zwick after the first table read ‘to say Brad wanted to quit.’
Producer Marshall Herskovitz eventually convinced him to stay.
‘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.
‘Sometimes, no matter how experienced or sensitive you are as a director, things just aren’t working.’
‘His ideas about Tristan differed from mine,’ Zwick went on.
‘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.’
He recalled on instance when he gave Pitt a direction in front of the crew, which he admitted was ‘a stupid, shaming provocation.’
‘Brad came back at me, also out loud, telling me to back off.’
He recalled one of their on set ‘dustups’ writing they allegedly ‘yelled, swore and threw chairs’ and that it ‘wasn’t the last time it happened’; (L-R) Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz and Pitt in 2015
‘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. Also for the reluctance he’d shown after the first table read. 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.’
He then detailed a moment where they allegedly yelled, swore and threw chairs.
‘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.’
Zwick shared that though they would ‘blowup’ at each other, they would later ‘make up and mean it.’
The director went on to state that Pitt is ‘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.
