‘FELT LIKE OLD TIMES’
Pitt’s former stuntman now his ‘Bullet Train’ director
It was easy for director David Leitch to get Brad Pitt onboard for “Bullet Train.”
Long before they teamed up for the new action comedy, Leitch was Pitt’s stunt double in some of the actor’s biggest movies, including “Fight Club” and “Troy.”
Leitch has since established himself as a leading director of big-budget action films, and as soon as he sent the raucous “Bullet Train” script to Pitt, it was full speed ahead.
“It was really beautiful to come full circle,” Leitch told the Daily News. “Brad had seen my work as a filmmaker, and even though we’ve now spent 20 years apart from the time I used to double him to now me being in the director’s chair, it felt like old times.
“We had a good relationship in how the stunt double helps build the physicality of a character when you’re making a movie, and now I had this guy who’s at the pinnacle of his acting prowess to come build a character in support of my film.”
Zooming into theaters Friday, “Bullet Train” stars Pitt as an unlucky assassin whose assignment to recover a briefcase from a Japanese locomotive is complicated by competing mercenaries, kicking off a marathon of bloodshed.
Pitt, 58, was captivated by the film’s irreverent humor and unconventional protagonist, nicknamed Ladybug, and quickly agreed to play the character.
“[Ladybug is] a guy who walked away from this business, maybe had a trauma, and he’s in the early stages of self-help. He’s got all the platitudes, but none of the real work you’ve got to do on yourself behind it,” Leitch said.
“He’s trying to will these platitudes on people that obviously are not ready to take it. A train full of sociopaths is not where your selfhelp platitudes are going to work in any way.”
Leitch, 46, turned to filmmaking after two decades as a stuntman, co-directing 2014’s “John Wick” before helming “Atomic Blonde,” starring Charlize Theron; “Deadpool 2,” led by Ryan Reynolds, and “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” headlined by Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham.
Production for “Bullet Train” began in late 2020 and continued into 2021, offering Leitch and Pitt some normalcy early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Doing some of these physical comedy gags in the style of Jackie Chan or Buster Keaton was really interesting to both of us, and could really make people laugh and want to come back to the cinema for something that was original,” Leitch said.
“That’s what we leaned into,” the filmmaker said. “We leaned into something that was boldly cinematic but ... fun. It was really cathartic for all of us involved to come to work every day and have the enjoyment of getting to make something that was so outrageous and so bold.”
Joey King, Aaron-Taylor Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry and Bad Bunny also star in “Bullet Train,” which is adapted from a Japanese novel by Kotaro Isaka.
The director says Pitt was “not afraid to swing for the fences and try to do something fresh” and did the bulk of his own stunts.
“The only time you’re taking Brad out is if it’s really gonna hurt,” Leitch said. “It’s never really because of performance. It’s more of safety things, because he can still do it and always could.
“My legacy as a stuntman with Brad was one of the most fulfilling things, but it was also one where I waited around a lot because he was doing so much of it. If you went in, you knew, ‘Oh, God, why are they calling me? Oh, because it’s gonna hurt.’ “
Pitt won an Oscar in 2020 for his performance as the easygoing stuntman and best friend of Leo DiCaprio’s movie star character in Quentin Tarantino’s 1969-set “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Leitch says Pitt’s portrayal in that movie differed from the relationship he had with the actor.
“The dynamic between Brad and I was always, ‘Train. We’ve got to train, choreograph, rehearse the character,’ and it was really more [about] storytelling,” Leitch said.
“We were more filmmaking partners and [about] building a character than Bloody Mary buddies.”