The actor Brad Pitt refused to work with on ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’
It may have become the biggest hit of his entire career after exploding into cinemas in the summer of 2005, but it also wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that the merits of blockbuster action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith were drastically overshadowed by the media frenzy surrounding stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Pairing up a pair of A-list heavyweights for a big budget romp had been standard practice in Hollywood for decades, but the speculation over a potential romantic entanglement between the two elevated Doug Liman’s bombastic caper onto an entirely different plane of existence.
As much as the pair sought to deny the rumours – especially with Pitt still married to Jennifer Aniston at the time – the fact they would soon publicly announce themselves as a couple and spend more than a decade together ensures that history will remember the relentless tabloid coverage as being entirely accurate.
Pitt’s entire life could have ended up heading in a different direction had the original casting plans panned out, though, with Nicole Kidman lined up to play Jane Smith. However, as Liman revealed to Entertainment Weekly, her coinciding shooting schedule with the 2003 remake of The Stepford Wives would ultimately rule her out of the running, with the filmmaker noting that once she found herself unable to commit, Pitt was ready to abandon ship as well.
And yet, conflicting reports emerged when producer Arnold Milchan claimed that Pitt had either dropped out of or ruled Kidman out of Mr. & Mrs. Smith due to a lack of chemistry with his would-be opposite number. When he discovered that Jolie was being drafted in as her replacement, the actor was happy to return as the leading man.
Between those two points where Liman was completely unsure as to who would end up leading the line in his action spectacular, some of the various names floated as leads included Will Smith, Johnny Depp, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cate Blanchett, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Light and frothy actioners don’t really tend to be pivotal moments in the course of modern Hollywood history, but based on the collective obsession with ‘Brangelina’ that emerged in the aftermath, Mr. & Mrs. Smith exists as one of them.
Kidman ultimately sympathised with the glare of the spotlight being placed so firmly on Pitt and Jolie as a result of the movie she almost starred in, as she explained to Vanity Fair: “If you really focus on each other and you’re in that bubble, it’s very intoxicating because it’s just the two of you.” Having previously been married to fellow megastar Tom Cruise, it was an experience she was very familiar with.
In the end, Mr. & Mrs. Smith proved to be the gift that kept on giving for celebrity columnists everywhere, comfortably overshadowing the film itself, which was no easy feat when it was one of the year’s biggest hits.
