Brad Pitt Says Working With Ex-Stunt Double, ‘Bullet Train’ Director Was ‘Beautiful Symmetry’
Despite the Quentin Tarantino-esque violence in Bullet Train, Brad Pitt’s latest movie is a comedic and, at times, absurd exploration of the ideas of fate and destiny.
As such, it seems only appropriate that a certain level of cosmic reciprocity was involved in the making of the film as well. The film’s director, David Leitch, was once Pitt’s stunt double. Here’s how it all worked out.
Brad Pitt’s search for meaning and his ‘Bullet Train’ character, Ladybug
In Bullet Train, Pitt plays Ladybug, an assassin who has recently undergone a crisis of conscience and re-examined his profession and life goals.
Interestingly, Pitt’s recent interview with GQ reveals the legendary actor’s journey to peace. In the interview, Pitt seems incredibly unguarded, sharing his dreams and ruminations with interviewer Ottessa Moshfegh. “I think I spent years with a low-grade depression,” Pitt says, before adding, “It’s not until coming to terms with that, trying to embrace all sides of self — the beauty and the ugly — that I’ve been able to catch those moments of joy.”
At another point in the interview, Pitt asks Moshfegh, “Why the f*** are we here? What’s beyond? Because I gather that you believe in something beyond … Do you feel trapped here, in this body and in this environment?”
With dialogue that could’ve come straight from Pitt’s Bullet Train character, Moshfegh and Pitt then proceed to swap quotes from the 13th-century poet, Rumi.
‘Bullet Train’ was directed by Brad Pitt’s ‘Fight Club’ stunt double, David Leitch
Considering this type of hyper-introspection and existential investigation, it is no surprise Pitt seems positively giddy when discussing his new film with Leitch.
“[Leitch] was my stunt double on Fight Club and he trained me for those fights,” Pitt tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And in a way, you know, he’s helping me develop the character and now he’s a director with his own voice and own vernacular and I’m serving him. He’s the boss.”
Pitt concludes the interview by saying with a broad smile, “And so, there was like a beautiful symmetry for two old friends.”
The wildly violent ‘Bullet Train’
Called “Murder on the Orient Express on meth and set in Japan” by the Boston Herald, Bullet Train is wall-to-wall brawling and action from departure to arrival. Fight sequences happen anywhere and everywhere including tiny spaces like the train’s genie-lamp-sized lavatories to the lounge car where Pitt takes on Bad Bunny as Wolf.
Additionally, the weapons used include (but are not limited to) knives, Samurai swords, guns, briefcases, toilets, injected poisons, bombs, and a hair tie that reverses a gun’s mechanics.
The film is fun and outlandish and, as detailed to Men’s Health by Bullet Train’s stunt coordinator/second unit director, Greg Remente, Leitch strived to have the actors perform as many of the stunts and participate in as much of the fighting as possible.
This type of hands-on approach is something that Leitch says has been an organic element of his and Pitt’s work together since the beginning. Speaking to Brut. about what it was like training with Pitt in both Fight Club and Bullet Train, Leitch says, “The big job of a stunt double is … to learn the choreography [and] train the actor to do as much as he can.” With Pitt, Leitch says that was nearly all of the “fighting action.”
In addition to Fight Club, Leitch and Pitt worked together on several other movies including Troy, The Mexican, Spy Game, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Deadpool 2, and Ocean’s Eleven. It was then that their career paths diverged, before the pair reunited for this year’s Bullet Train.
Like Pitt, Leitch credits fate with having brought them back together, with the director telling Brut., “Our fates took us in different places and then they ended up bringing us back together.”
