Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are two of the biggest stars of their generation. But who is braver when it comes to their on-screen stunts?
Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are two of the biggest A-list actors in Hollywood. The two men own their own production studios, command paychecks and backend points to the tune of millions of dollars, and both are willing to get physical to get just the perfect shot in a film.
Over the years, Cruise has become the frontrunner of actors, regardless of age, who do their own stunts without cutting to make the action sequence as believable and gripping as possible. This has done the Top Gun: Maverick star well with his career, given the action-packed franchises of Mission Impossible and Jack Reacher.
While Pitt may not have the same franchise opportunities as Cruise, he has had his fair share of action films in which he has starred and done his own stunts as well, including Troy, Bullet Train, Fury, Inglourious Basterds, and more. Because of this, it is natural to compare the two actors on just how death-defying their stunts are, with many believing that Cruise may push the envelope when it comes to how far he will go for a film. But if Pitt is asked, he believes he is braver than Cruise when it comes to onscreen stunts.
Tom Cruise And Brad Pitt Met When Filming ‘Interview With The Vampire’
Interview With The Vampire was the first and only film that Cruise and Pitt have starred in together. While the final product of the film turned out to be a box office success, it was also a film Pitt threatened to quit. The feeling started after Cruise was cast as Lestat de Lioncourt, a role that was originally intended for Daniel Day-Lewis to play.
“Oh, they hated him. Anne Rice found it perplexing. As did Brad Pitt, actually,” writer/director Neil Jordan explained.
“Everybody wanted Daniel – though I imagine he didn’t want to sleep in a coffin for preparation. I’ve always thought he’s a great actor, but his life is also not unlike the life of a vampire, you know what I mean?”
Jordan went on to state, “Famous people don’t want to go out into an unmediated space. They have to control who they meet and how they meet them. They have to control their image. It’s almost like they live in a spectral kind of world. Just as an analogy, that made sense to me. So we agreed to do the film together, and then everybody got really angry.”
Because of concerns about an onscreen kiss between Pitt and Kirsten Dunst when she was 11 years old and the conditions on set, many involved with the film were on edge. This led to rumors that Pitt and Cruise feuded with one another while working together.
Instead, it appears that the two just have different personalities that could clash from time to time but no real feud ever existed.
“You gotta understand, Tom and I are… we walk in different directions,” Pitt stated. “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?”
Pitt went on to say, “I always thought there was this underlying competition that got in the way of any real conversation. It wasn’t nasty by any means, not at all. But it was just there and it bugged me a bit. But I’ll tell you, he catches a lot of s**t because he’s on top, but he’s a good actor and he advances in the film. He did it. I mean, you have to respect that.”
It is this respect that has led Pitt to admit that Cruise is a daredevil when it comes to his stunts on film.
Brad Pitt Admits Tom Cruise Is A Daredevil When It Comes To Stunts
When Pitt was filming Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, he played a stuntman. For his role, Pitt had some stunts he had to do but when it came to things that could injure him or if his presence would not add anything to the film, Pitt deferred to the professional stuntmen to do the work that they do so well.
“Hats off to Tom [Cruise]. I couldn’t even begin to keep up with him,” Pitt admitted. “I say, if a stuntman can do it I’ll be reading a book having a coffee.”
Unlike Cruise, Pitt has no desire to put himself in a position where safety could be a question. Cruise will even fire those who say his stunts are too dangerous to do and hire those who say it can be done.
Matt Damon said that would make him leery of taking advice from Cruise about stunts on set. However, this does not mean that Pitt thinks Cruise is braver than him when it comes to performing stunts on set.
Brad Pitt Thinks He Is Braver Than Tom Cruise Based On Stunts Performed
To promote Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Pitt made an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. During the interview, a stunt was mentioned that Pitt had to be involved with personally that caused him to compare himself to Cruise and the insane stunts the Hollywood veteran is willing to do time and again in his films.
“OK, Tom Cruise, my friend, will tie himself to the side of the airplane, it will take off and land,” Pitt said. “I put applesauce on the side of my neck so a pit bull will give me love and affection – I don’t know who’s braver!”
Of course, Pitt was being comical about his stunt with a trained pitbull on the set of this film. The Bullet Train star is keenly aware that his desire to do stunts is not anywhere in the same stratosphere as Cruise’s is and honestly, there likely is not any other actor in Hollywood who could compete with Cruise’s stuntman skills.
As such, it is clear that Pitt only believes in jest that he is braver than Cruise when it comes to doing stunts. He, like the rest of film lovers, agrees that when it comes to death-defying stunts, Cruise is the only actor for the job.
