“Legends of the Fall” Director puts Brad Pitt on BLAST for Volatile behavior on set

"As the shoot continued, Brad’s anxiety about the movie never quite went away. 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. Some actors have problems with authority, but just as many directors are threatened when intelligent actors ask challenging questions that reveal their lack of preparation. Both are right and both are wrong," Ed wrote.

He continued, alleging, "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 novel was that a man’s life was the sum of his griefs," he explained, adding that there were concerns that Brad was coming across "more blank than internal."

"Yet the more I pushed Brad to reveal himself, the more he resisted. There’s a bright line between strong direction and dominance, especially when a male director is directing a male star. At times it risks becom- ing what a shrink and friend once called 'an issue of phallic identity' — in other words, d-ck-measuring. A strong director working with a strong actor can be like two dancers who are both trying to lead. But such tension can also yield very good work. George Clooney and David O. Russell got into an intense altercation on Three Kings. Each claims the other started it. Was it worth it? It was a great movie."

"So, I kept pushing and Brad pushed back. One afternoon I started giving him direction out loud in front of the crew — a stupid, shaming provocation — and Brad came back at me, also out loud, telling me to back off," he claimed. "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."

Ed continued, writing, "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 on-screen."

"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," he added.

Team Angelina! Brad is a limited actor and general simpleton.

The character he portrayed, Tristan, was a difficult and unmanageable individual, so you can say he was method acting.

If an actress behaved this way, her career would be over. Men get away with everything in Hollywood and nobody cares.

Has Brad ever shown much vulnerability on-screen?

I don't get why people decide to publicly air their personal differences decades later.

God help me but I read every page of the Just Jared article. The format almost killed me but this doesn’t seem as bad as the clickbait title would suggest. Ed Zwick comes across reasonable and willing to admit his part in the on set tension. He even states that Brad admitted he wasn’t at his best behaved during the shoot. This is typical of a lot of film sets.

"Brad had grown up with men who held their emotions in check if not their rectums".

Fixed for Ed

But he was at his most beautiful then

His peak beauty hadn’t happened yet. Brad still is beautiful.

He looked his best in Fight Club

on BLAAAST?

[quote]I don't get why people decide to publicly air their personal differences decades later.

Because it’s not until decades later that they’re trying to sell a book.

No one gives a shit.

That said, the author is quite a good writer.

I'd read the book, just to wallow in the miasma of his verbiage.

You read the book that doesn’t come out until the 13th?

[quote] Team Angelina!

Who gives a shit, this was thirty years ago.

R4 I just need to point something out. You’re only talking about the actor. Why is it okay for the director to act that way?

R16 That's what I say.

After their mums saw that film. So many boys of that era were named Tristan.

R19 They were?

[quote] Team Angelina!

Brad team.

This is the only movie where I have found Pitt hot. It's like Bradley Cooper in the first Hangover movie, he does nothing for me except in that film.

He made numerous attempts to suck the COCKS of all the hot guys on the set.

[...]

Oh, god, will these people grow the fuck up already?!

Aidan Quinn's role, IMO, was more demanding. Pitt's role was the prodigal, care-free Golden Child who the father (and Quinn's wife) loved more than Quinn's character. Quinn had to play hurt, jealous, all of that. I also though Quinn had a more mature, sexy look. The character was almost too simp-ish, though. I would have liked to see a scene where Quinn kicked some ass.

My God!! Yes, this is Extremely Important 30 years! after the fact!!

This is such a nothingburger of a story, being presented as something scandalous.

It was a cheesy nothing-burger of a movie.

It was somewhere between a movie and a Lifetime special w/an exceptional cast.

R20 yes, this movie popularized the name Tristan, just like SPLASH had done with Madison in the '80s.

[quote]I don't get why people decide to publicly air their personal differences decades later.

Agreed. Why wait 30 years to bring this up?

R19 Tristan was already a name asshole. There wasn’t a name popularity bump because of that movie.

R32 because he is being honest about it in a book. That’s how it works. He didn’t have a reason to mention it before. He does now.

R33 you don't know what you're talking about.

R35 neither do you

R19 I also intended to name my son that name, but I misspelled his name at the hospital.

Now people assume he's just a snack.

2 spoiled Hollywood brats. Next.

R14, did you read the excerpts of the book posted upthread by OP?

The man is a very good writer, and reading the excerpts reveals this.

R31 Interesting. I've never met a man or boy named Tristan in my life.

I know a couple of tristans

I don't know any Tristans or any Isoldes.

r33 well something happened between the years 1994 and 1996 to make the name Tristan SOAR in popularity. from 500 in 1994 to 5500 in 1996.

you look like a dumbass aggresively deisagreeing with a post when one minute of research could confirm what they are claiming

It's crazy how much he looks like fellow gay actor, Guy Madison.

[quote ] there were concerns that Brad was coming across "more blank than internal."

Unfortunately Ed, your fears were confirmed. Brad Pitt was so mediocre in LOTF.

R37 I feel your pain .

Popular or not, IMO, Tristan sounds like a trash name.

^ Travis

And here I am worrying about our democracy. I feel so shallow.

I knew a Tristan, he was a coworker that was from Montreal.

It's a good name. Very soap opera-ish, but it's fine.

R43 Dude, I’m just saying truthfully I never met anyone named Tristan. That’s not a lie. No one is “aggressively disagreeing” with anything.

I'm waiting on the Daddy Dearest tell-all from Pax, ghost-written by Angelina.

I watched “Mr and Mrs Smith” last night. I forgot how much I hated that movie.

R6 They’re called cunts.

[quote] It was somewhere between a movie and a Lifetime special w/an exceptional cast.

Well that depends entirely on what you think "exceptional" means.

I think I'm the only person who preferred Aidan Quinn to Brad Pitt in that movie

R57, I did too, much prefer older Brad in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...

R57, r26 though Aidan “had a more mature, sexy look.”

R57, R26 thought Aidan “had a more mature, sexy look.”

R52 I’m just saying truthfully, I never met anyone over the age of ten who used the word Dude who wasn't a dolt.

I have dude.

Brad currently in a relationship with a woman almost half his age. Angelina must be seething.

Cue any negative stories that be dug up about his cuntish behaviour.

^ I doubt Angelina paid this guy to write a book

Remember when Angie got all the heat when Bad cheated on Jen? Like another poster said, white men in Hollywood gets way with everything for the longest time.

r40 / r42 I know 2 people named Tristan - both very sexy

[quote] white men in Hollywood gets way

R66 Where do you live?

I know Ed Kelce (Travis' father) is a Repug

[quote] I know Ed Kelce (Travis' father) is a Repug

But does he known the volatile Brad Pitt?

lolz r70 I had too many windows open and posted in the wrong thread. Doh!