Movies - TV
Brad Pitt Isn't Exactly Proud Of His Performance In Troy
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Wolfgang Petersen's 2004 peplum flick "Troy" is a large, clunky, gorgeous hunk of oiled-up idiocy that, while financially successful, failed to gain traction in the critical consciousness. Brad Pitt one of the film’s stars can be counted among the film’s detractors and the whole experience led him to re-evaluate the way he made his career decisions.
Experiencing "Troy" and the way Petersen made it caused Pitt to come to an important realization about how he is physically filmed, how leading men are treated by a camera, and how movie stardom is not the same thing as a story. Although it was made by his own production company, Pitt was blindsided by how its director transformed the film into a mystery-free tale of bland Hollywood heroism.
There are many ways to film "The Iliad," and Pitt seems to have expected something a little artier or classier. In an interview he stated, "['Troy'] really made me think, I'm following my gut from here on out. [...] It wasn't painful, but I realized that the way that movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be. I made my own mistakes in it."
Following "Troy," Pitt appeared in a few other commercial projects like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" before moving on to more interesting projects like "Babel," and auteur-forward prestige films like "Moneyball.” If he did appear in the occasional blockbuster, it was to send up his image as a Hollywood leading man. Notably, in 2019, he won an Academy Award for his role in "Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood." It seems that the lessons from "Troy" were taken to heart.