The career-long rule Brad Pitt broke for David Fincher: “I swore I would never”
Brad Pitt is one of the ultimate leading men in Hollywood, becoming a global superstar after his breakout role in Thelma and Louise, playing a soft-natured cowboy hitchhiker who sweeps Thelma off her feet. From this point onwards, he had an outrageously successful creative streak with the likes of Se7en, Interview with a Vampire, True Romance and Fight Club, which were all released within a few years of each other.
Since then, he has become known for his dynamic and colourful supporting roles, whether it be the insane one-liners from his character in Burn After Reading, the silent danger of Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or the fading film star in Babylon. But with a career that is chock full of challenging parts, there was a performance that proved to be most difficult due to the fact that it broke Pitt’s golden rule.
Pitt has become a regular collaborator of a few directors over the years, working with Quentin Tarantino on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Inglorious Basterds. However, he has most frequently worked with David Fincher over the years, with Se7en being one of his definitive roles, along with Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
While has become infamous for his delivery of lines such as “what’s in the box?” and his simple relaying of the rules of fight club, his performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button required an extensive physical transformation, with the actor describing how he had previously avoided any kind of film involving prosthetics. But after meeting with Fincher about the 2008 film, he quickly realised that the power of his vision trumped any inconveniences caused by the transformation process.
When discussing this, Pitt said, “Man, I swore I would never do prosthetics. I’ve done some glue-on beards, and they’re not fun. Then Fincher came with this one and I said, ‘I’m in’. One of his other great talents is subverting and perverting whatever existing technology there is to his own evil devices. So there was never a question, for me, about whether it would work. He did something very smart. He said, “’We’re not going to develop new technology. We’re going to take the technology that’s there for gaming and for special effects, blow-up-the-world movies, and use that technology for small details – pupils dilating, ageing’. And the makeup guys were so good; wearing this stuff all day was surprisingly comfortable. But, no, I won’t do it again”.
The film follows a man who ages backwards, following his life as he adapts to these unusual circumstances, with Pitt having to wear extensive makeup and prosthetics to transform into the character at various different stages of his life in which he looks drastically different.
This is one of the few characters Pitt has played that has left him for so long in the makeup chair, something that has been a topic of discussion after the success of The Substance and the impressive process that Demi Moore went through. While the effect is convincing, it is understandably not something you would want to repeat very often, somewhat akin to having the longest and most laborious haircut of your life.
