Brad Pitt Regrets Working With Indiana Jones Star Harrison Ford, Blames Him For Ruining $140M Film’s Script That Became His Worst Nightmare
Greats have their own ways and they often conflict. That’s what happened during the making of the 1997 action thriller The Devil’s Own. Stars in their own right, Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt were not on the same page for a large portion of filming. Things had gotten so bad that Pitt almost did not do the film and was thinking of abandoning the project.
At the end of the day Pitt and Ford both starred in the film and it ended up doing decently at the box office. But the behind the scenes feud didn’t stay that way. The pair has openly talked about it in the past and only recently as well.
Brad Pitt Almost Quit The Devil’s Own
Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt were at odds from the get-go. Pitt was seriously considering quitting the film. He did stay because of the $63 million penalty, that will get inflicted upon him by the studio.
It had all been because of the script changes. While getting on with the decided script, Ford suggested some changes. These changes meant the script had changed wildly. It was no longer the script that was agreed on. Pitt said in an interview just after the films’ release:
“The script that I had loved was gone.”
Both the actors agreed to the same script but their perspectives of the same story prevented them to see eye to eye.
The Devil’s Own Shooting was not a Smooth Sail
The film was directed by Aaron J Pakula for whom the movie was his first feature film. The film also dealt with the complicated theme of the geopolitical and transformational issues of Northern Ireland which is certainly a tricky topic to work with.
With Ford’s script changes and the transitiveness of not having a director decided brings, working on the film was far from pleasurable. Pitt once mentioned this in an interview:
“I guess people just had different visions and you can’t argue with that.”
Ford didn’t shy away from stating that Pitt was not happy with the script changes he had imposed. However, he did offer an explanation for his behavior saying:
“Brad had this complicated character, and I wanted a complication on my side so that it wasn’t just a good-and-evil battle. And that’s when I came up with the bad-shooting thing. I worked with a writer — but then, all the sudden, we were shooting and we didn’t have a script that Brad and I agreed on. Each of us had different ideas about it.”
Both actors emphasized that this was all due to creative differences, nothing personal.
Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford Don’t Hate The Devil’s Own
Even as making the film was a rough ride, the actors both seem to have learned to view it all in a positive light. Surely both their comments about working with each other were not the best in the initial stages. But they both look back warmly.
Pitt has said:
“I really like Devil’s Own. It was a good schooling for me. Still, I think the movie could have been better. Literally, the script got thrown out.”
Harrison’s views are not very different either:
“We had a real hard time making it, but Alan [Pakula] made, I think, a really good movie out of it.”
It is clear that neither of them was satisfied with what they were doing but they did it anyway. Both stars might not have come out of shooting the movie on the friendliest terms but by the sound of it both are okay with that.
The Devil’s Own is now streaming on Netflix.
Source: YouTube
