The actor Brad Pitt will never work with again: “He’s North Pole. I’m South.”
Throughout his excellent career, Brad Pitt has proven his chemistry with a wide range of fellow actors. As far back as 1992’s A River Runs Through It, Pitt detailed the on-screen sparks with Tom Skerrit, which showed that he could generate classic moments of acting with another star performer.
Pitt’s effort alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also shows the kind of effort the actor can give when paired up with someone with as much talent as himself. The relationship between Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth is one that simmers with friendship, showcasing the deep talents of the film’s cast.
However, Pitt has not been delighted with every actor he’s been set up to star alongside. Early into his career, Pitt made a breakthrough performance in Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire, based on Anne Rice’s 1976 novel of the same name. Tom Cruise played the vampire Lestat, and Pitt portrayed Louis, a man bitten by Lestat who subsequently undergoes a transformation into a vampire.
The film takes place across several hundred years, with one narrative taking place in the present day as Louis tells his story to a journalist played by Christian Slater, while the other documents Louis’ vampiric transformation that took route in 1791 in Louisiana. Two Oscar nominations arrived for ‘Best Art Direction’ and ‘Best Original Score’, and commercial success for the film duly followed.
It appears that Pitt hated being in the production of the film, though. In an interview with EW, Pitt explained how shooting the film in London led to him getting depressed on the set. “London was fucking dark,” he said. “London was dead of winter. You leave for work in the dark — you go into this cauldron, this mausoleum — and then you come out, and it’s dark. I’m telling you, one day, it broke me.”
The dour mood on the set of Jordan’s film led to a falling out with Cruise, who had already established himself as a movie star in the 1980s. At times, Pitt felt like he was playing second fiddle to his co-star. “In the book it is a guy going on this search of discovery,” Pitt said of his character. “And in the meantime, he has this Lestat character that he’s entranced by and abhors.”
The focus in the film, though, seemed to be on Cruise’s Lestat, or as Pitt put it, “They took the sensational aspects of Lestat and made that the pulse of the film, and those things are very enjoyable and very good, but for me, there was just nothing to do.” The result was that Pitt largely fell overshadowed, and a rift began to emerge between him and Cruise.
In an interview with Premiere from the year after Interview with the Vampire was released, Pitt explained the differences between him and Cruise. “You gotta understand, Tom and I are… we walk in different directions,” the actor said. “He’s North Pole. I’m South. He’s coming at you with a handshake, where I may bump into you, I may not, you know?”
There’s a sense of bitterness in Pitt’s words from back in the 1990s, and clearly, he never wanted to work with Cruise again, saying that they were on different paths that were unlikely to ever converge again. And the truth is that Pitt and Cruise never starred in a movie together, and unless some drastic fortune befalls the film industry, it’s likely that they never will.
Check out the trailer for Interview with the Vampire to see the only told Brad Pitt worked with Tom Cruise.