The on-set fight that almost derailed ‘Fury’
Camaraderie is a difficult thing to fake, even in the movie business, but David Ayer’s desire to have his cast live a shared experience when shooting World War II tank thriller Fury ended up raising tensions to boiling point on more than one occasion.
As has often tended to be the case on the set of a production, Shia LaBeouf was heavily involved in the repeated disagreements, much of which stemmed from his intense desire to get as deeply into character as possible. The star went full-blown method for his role as gunner Boyd Swan, which ended up rubbing Scott Eastwood the wrong way.
Ayer had his cast embark on four months of intense and rigorous preparations, too, which included LaBeouf and Eastwood eating, sleeping, and living in the titular tank alongside co-stars Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña. As the filmmaker told The Express: “I am ruthless as a director. I will do whatever I think is necessary to get what I want.”
That extended to having the ensemble scrap with each other for real, with Bernthal admitting there were “black eyes and bloody noses” when they were “brought together, put in a ring, and told to fight each other.” Explaining how that was all part of his director’s process, Bernthal reflected on how “David had this sick idea that the more we learned about each other, the more we could hurt each other.”
Eastwood alluded to a “volatile moment that Brad Pitt ultimately got in the middle of” when speaking to Insider, which saw the son of Hollywood icon Clint end up at loggerheads with LaBeouf when the former was chewing and spitting tobacco in, on, and around the tank.
Pitt acknowledged that “I had to get in after the cameras were rolling and explain it to Scott,” with LaBeouf furious that his scene partner was seemingly deviating from the script and being disrespectful to their temporary accommodation.
However, it turned out that Eastwood was merely following the pages that Ayer had written, with the leading man remarking that “it said Scotty’s character is chewing tobacco and spitting it on the tank.” In the end, Pitt held his hands up, referring to himself and LaBeouf as “the knobs in the end” who were in the wrong.
Fury was a decent-sized hit both at the box office and with critics following its release in October 2014, but it’s entirely up for debate as to whether or not Ayer’s extreme methods were worth it, looking at the number of incidents to have occurred during pre-production and subsequently shooting.
Lerman said the production “left some scars and some wounds maybe I’m still healing from” after the fact, while the bad blood between Eastwood and LaBeouf can’t have made things any rosier on a set that was already fraught with tension due to its director’s demands for the utmost realism.
