The Brad Pitt movie role originally written for Cher
At the turn of the 1990s, Brad Pitt was on the cusp of embracing a new stature of stardom and was soon to become one of the biggest and most bankable actors on the planet. Leading up to this, he had featured in a number of popular television shows and had cameo roles in films such as Thelma and Louise and True Romance. By the end of the decade, he was a household name, having taken leading roles in hugely successful movies like Seven, Seven Years in Tibet, and Fight Club.
However, during this shift in the actor’s career, he landed one role that was initially written for an artist operating in a totally different realm.
In 1979, the American author Anne Rice, well-known for her gothic and erotic fiction, released her first book, Interview with the Vampire. In 1994, it was adapted into a film, with Neil Jordan attached to direct and Rice to pen the screenplay. The film charts the long life span of two vampires, beginning in the 1700s and running up to the modern day. One of the vampires recounts this life story to a journalist in the present day, with the story cutting back and forth between two timelines.
Rice had specific people in mind when writing the script and has been vocal about her initial casting inspiration. “I wrote the script in which Cher was supposed to play Louis,” Rice revealed to Movieline. Rice also spoke of why Cher was the original choice to play the part and how the casting would develop the story.
“At that time in history, you could own your own plantation and run things if you were a man, [but] you couldn’t if you were a woman,” said the writer. “So this was a woman who dressed like a man, and otherwise, it was exactly the same as Interview With the Vampire“.
The role of Louis was eventually given to Brad Pitt, who starred alongside Tom Cruise in the other leading role, with Antonio Banderas, Kristen Dunst, and Christian Slater also performing. It’s a remarkably different choice in casting from the first conception of the character. Though Rice has also gone on to say she was moved by what Pitt brought to the role, “You were a delicate and heartbreaking Louis,” she wrote to Pitt, “Whatever you felt, you swept people off their feet.”
Interview With The Vampire stands now as one of the better films in the incredibly crowded genre of vampire movies. The book even had another adaptation in 2022, this time with a TV series under the same name, albeit proving less impactful.
