Brad Pitt revealed in the past that his experience making the 2004 epic Troy became a defining moment that changed the way he approached his acting career.
In a 2019 interview for The New York Times Magazine’s Great Performers issue, Pitt said his disappointment with the film pushed him to stop following outside advice and instead trust his own instincts when choosing roles.
The actor, who played Greek warrior Achilles in Wolfgang Petersen’s historical epic, said Troy marked a turning point after years of navigating expectations placed on him as a Hollywood leading man.
“I’m following my gut from here on out,” Pitt said.
Pitt explained that he originally wanted to pursue different projects but accepted advice that encouraged him to take a bigger commercial role instead.
“There was this defining film I never got to do, a Coen brothers film called To the White Sea. We had an opportunity to go, and then it was shut down,” he said.
“Then another interesting opportunity arose, and instead I was talked into: ‘No, you need to be doing this other thing. You can get to your art project later.’ I ended up taking that advice.”
Pitt said he was contractually required to make another studio film after leaving a different project, which eventually led him to Troy.
“I had to do Troy because — I guess I can say all this now — I pulled out of another movie and then had to do something for the studio. So I was put in Troy.”
Although he praised director Wolfgang Petersen, Pitt said the film’s approach did not match the type of storytelling he wanted to pursue.
“It wasn’t painful, but I realized that the way that movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be,” Pitt said. “I made my own mistakes in it.”
The actor said he struggled with the film’s visual style, particularly the way it presented its hero.
“I could not get out of the middle of the frame. It was driving me crazy,” Pitt said.
He compared the experience with his previous collaborations with director David Fincher, whose films encouraged more ambiguity and complexity.
“I’d become spoiled working with David Fincher,” Pitt said. “It’s no slight on Wolfgang Petersen. Das Boot is one of the all-time great films. But somewhere in it, Troy became a commercial kind of thing.”
“Every shot was like, ‘Here’s the hero!’ There was no mystery.”
Pitt said that experience convinced him to prioritise stronger material and more challenging filmmakers.
“So about that time I made a decision that I was only going to invest in quality stories, for lack of a better term,” he said. “It was a distinct shift that led to the next decade of films.”
Following Troy, Pitt increasingly worked with acclaimed directors and appeared in films including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Moneyball, 12 Years a Slave, The Big Short and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.
Looking back on his career evolution, Pitt said he became more interested in finding roles where he could contribute something unique rather than simply filling the traditional Hollywood leading-man role.
“In the ’90s I did become aware that there was this kind of leading-man role that you could plug any of us into and it didn’t even matter,” Pitt said.
“We would all have the same result. So as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more conscious of thinking, ‘If I am the one to play something, what can I bring that’s unique?’”
Pitt said his later performances, including Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and Roy McBride in James Gray’s Ad Astra, reflected a deeper understanding of himself and his characters.
“The two characters could be connected,” Pitt said. “In the sense that you have to go through an evolution to get to a place of comfort. You have to go through profound internal hardships.”