Brad Pitt played a stunt man in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, but it turns out that even at 57 years old, Brad Pitt is pretty good at actually being a stunt man. The Oscar winner recently finished filming on the upcoming film Bullet Train and one of the movie's directors reveals that Pitt ended up doing nearly all of his own stunts for the movie. Who does this guy think he is, Tom Cruise?
While Tom Cruise, who is a year older than Brad Pitt, is well known as "that actor" who insists on doing all of his stunts himself, Brad Pitt hasn't really built that reputation despite being the same age and certainly appearing in his share of action movies. Still, Pitt has never had a Mission: Impossible-like franchise to draw on like Cruise. Regardless, it sounds like he's was really putting it out there in his new movie. The second unit director for Bullet Train, Greg Rementer, who would have been responsible for much of the movie's action, recently revealed to Vulture that Pitt did nearly all his physical stunts himself. According to Rementer...
Brad did 95 percent of his physical stunts — the fighting. He’s like a natural-born athlete. He really got in there!
Bullet Train includes an all-star cast that, in addition to Brad Pitt, will include Sandra Bullock, Michael Shannon Zazie Beetz, Bryan Tyree Henry, and possibly even Lady Gaga. The plot focuses on a collection of hitmen who all find themselves on the same train for different reasons. With a set up like that one can assume the movie is going to be quite physical and gave Brad Pitt lots of interesting things to do when performing those stunts.
However, it seems that Brad Pitt was far from the only actor to do a lot of his own physical stunt work. Several of the other actors in the movie did as well. And considering that Bullet Train is directed by David Leitch, the director of John Wick, Atomic Blonde, and more, that's maybe not all that shocking. Leitch, like his John Wick directing partner Chad Stahelski, are both former stunt people themselves and their films have been heavy on the action and have always showcased the actor as much as possible, even when that requires extensive training.
With an amazing cast all doing their own stunts, and a premise that should lead to some unique opportunities for action Bullet Train sounds like a lot of fun. The movie doesn't have an official release date yet but with principal photography just wrapping up, we can likely expect to see the film early next year with a slim chance it could arrive as early as the end of 2021.
