Legends of the Fall Director Says Brad Pitt Can Become ‘Volatile When ‘Riled’

Director Ed Zwick is revealing on-set tensions between himself and Brad Pitt on the 1994 film, Legends of the Fall, with the filmmaker detailing a working relationship that could be described as very turbulent.

Per Variety, Zwick’s new memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood, details significant tension between the director and Pitt while shooting the 1994 Western drama. Admitting that the actor was cast as Tristan Ludlow after Tom Cruise dropped out of the project, the filmmaker reveals that tensions first arose when Pitt’s agent called him after the first table read saying he wanted to quit.

“It fell to [producer] Marshall [Herskovitz] to talk Brad off the ledge. It was the first augury of the deeper springs of emotion roiling inside Brad. He seems easygoing at first, but 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 admits that Pitt’s mood “would get edgy whenever he was about to shoot a scene that required him to display deep emotion.” The director also says that he and the actor had very different ideas when it came to Tristan as a character.

“His ideas about Tristan differed from mine. Brad had grown up with men who held their emotions in check; I believed that 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.”

Brad Pitt often pushed back against some of Edward Zwick’s direction

One afternoon described by Zwick involved the filmmaker giving Pitt a particular direction out loud in front of the crew, which he admits was an attempt at shaming and provoking the actor to get what he wanted, and it’s something the actor aggressively pushed back on.

“Brad came back at me, also out loud, telling me to back off. 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 at 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. 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.”

Despite the differences while making the film, Zwick also admits that they would make up after their blow-ups and went on to say that Pitt was also “fun to be with and capable of great joy.” He also expressed that the actor was 100 percent committed to doing his best in the film.

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Legends of the Fall was based on the 1979 novella of the same name by Jim Harrison, and it follows three brothers and their father as they live in the wilderness and plans of Montana in the early 20th century. The film also depicts how their lives are deeply affected by nature, history, war, and love as the story spans nearly 50 years from the early 20th century World War I, through the Prohibition era, and ends with a scene set in 1963. In addition to Pitt, the film also stars Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormond, and Henry Thomas.

While reviews were on the more mixed side, registering a 59 percent rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Art Direction, Best Sounds, and Best Cinematography, the latter of which it won. The movie also proved to be a box office success, grossing $66 million domestically and $160.6 million worldwide.