Brad Pitt’s 'Legends of the Fall' Role Almost Went to This A-List Actor

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In the realm of Hollywood, casting choices are the unsung heroes. They sculpt the characters that etch themselves into our hearts and influence a movie’s performance at the box office. Now, let’s travel back and visit one of the most iconic ’90s movie roles: Brad Pitt’s mesmerizing portrayal of Tristan Ludlow in Legends of the Fall. This role, which skyrocketed Pitt into the limelight, was almost brought to life by another leading actor.

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Ed Zwick, an acclaimed director for his work on films like Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, and of course, Legends of the Fall, recently penned a book titled Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood. In this memoir, he imparts readers with an insightful journey through his illustrious career. Amidst the various anecdotes and revelations about Legends of the Fall in an excerpt published by Vanity Fair, one stands out: a different A-list actor was almost Tristan Ludlow.

Enter Tom Cruise, the heartthrob of Top Gun and Rain Man fame. In Zwick’s memoir, he reveals an intriguing encounter that almost led to Cruise playing the role of Tristan Ludlow. “[The producer] was intent on getting Tom Cruise to play Tristan and had CAA send him the script. Cruise read it and invited me to come to Wyoming, where he was in the middle of filming Far and Away,” Zwick explains in the excerpt.

Zwick met with Cruise on set and left with a high impression of the actor. He said that Ron Howard, the director of Far and Away, “corroborated what I had heard many times before; Tom Cruise was a director’s dream.”

However, the meeting was not quite as fruitful as he’d hoped when it came to discussing the Legends script. It turned out to be more of a “let’s ride horses and then hang out in Cruise’s opulent trailer” type of meet-and-greet than a formal discussion about the film. But Cruise showed interest in the project and requested a follow-up meeting when he returned to Los Angeles. “I was home in time for dinner with absolutely no way to gauge the level of Tom’s interest,” Zwick recalls in his book.

During their second meeting, the conversation took a surprising turn. Cruise asked about Tristan’s ethics, leading Zwick to respond that Tristan essentially had none — a trait central to the character’s essence. “It was then I realized he would never do the movie,” Zwick writes.

Zwick hints at Cruise’s religion, Scientology, possibly influencing his decision to decline the role. “I’m told his question had something to do with Scientology,” he writes, but adds that it was the only time during their collaborations that it ever interfered with a creative conversation.

In the end, Cruise passed on Legends, and the role eventually went to Brad Pitt. The rest, as they say, is history. Pitt’s performance as Tristan was critically acclaimed, earning him a Golden Globe nomination and cementing his status as a Hollywood heavyweight. As for Cruise and Zwick, their paths crossed again a decade later on the set of The Last Samurai, a collaboration Zwick describes as “one of the most gratifying experiences of my career.”

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