Brad Pitt Hated This Movie So Much He Tried to Walk Off Set
Brad Pitt has done it all — iconic thrillers like Fight Club and Se7en, laid-back cool in Ocean's Eleven, absurd brilliance in Burn After Reading, and whatever Babylon was.
But even with decades of hits behind him, there's one movie he loathed so much, he almost quit before they even started shooting.
That movie? Legends of the Fall (1994).
Now, to the outside world, it looked like a prestige drama: sweeping Montana vistas, World War I angst, and Anthony Hopkins doing Serious Father Energy. But behind the scenes, it was a vibe disaster.
According to director Edward Zwick, things went sideways early — like, table read early. Pitt was already uncomfortable, and a few hours later, his agent called the studio with a message: Brad wanted out.
"I could see Brad's growing discomfort as it went on," Zwick recalled. "Hours afterwards, his agent called the studio to say Brad wanted to quit. It fell to [producer] Marshall [Herskovitz] to talk Brad off the ledge."
The situation cooled off — for the moment. But tensions kept simmering during production. Zwick said Pitt grew "edgy" when pushed into emotional territory, especially after one of his favorite scenes got cut. That apparently threw the whole character off for him.
"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," Zwick explained.
Pitt believed the cut scene would've shown more of his character's madness, and without it, he felt the whole arc fell flat.
Despite all the behind-the-scenes drama, Legends of the Fall actually did well — it made money, picked up some Oscar nominations, and turned Pitt into a full-blown leading man. But Zwick described him as volatile, and it's clear Pitt never warmed up to the experience.
Still, it didn't slow him down. Just a year later, he was chasing a box full of something terrible in Se7en, and he's kept the momentum ever since. As of 2025, he's still doing the A-list thing — most recently starring in racing epic F1 for Apple TV.
So while Legends of the Fall may have been emotionally draining for Pitt, it also helped launch the very stardom that lets him pick and choose his projects today. Just don't ask him to relive it — he's made it pretty clear he'd rather forget the whole thing ever happened.