Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are some of the most well-known actors in the film industry. They both have had incredibly successful careers and have proved their longevity in an incredibly competitive field.
Tom Cruise has been in the film industry for nearly 40 years, and has proved that he is here to stay. In 1986, his star status was cemented with Top Gun, in which he plays a navy jet pilot. Top Gun turned out to get the highest-grossing film that year. In 2022, he went on to star in the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick
Brad Pitt was a relative newcomer at the time. He gained recognition with his role as a cowboy hitchhiker in Thelma and Louise. Pitt went on to star in cult classics such as Fight Club and Ocean’s Eleven.
Rumored Feud between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise
Despite being some of the most successful actors in Hollywood, fans swear that there’s bad blood between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. But as the saying goes- there’s no smoke without a fire.
The rumor started in 1994 when the two actors shared the screen for Neil Jordans’s Interview With the Vampire. The movie was a huge success. With a humble budget of $60 million, it earned close to $224 million. However, despite the movie’s box office success, fans were surprised to learn that Brad Pitt was actually “miserable” for the entirety of the time they spent filming.
“He bugged me,” confessed Pitt in an interview.
“There came a point during filming when I started really resenting him. He’s North Pole, I’m South,” Pitt continued, illustrating the differences between the two men. “He’s always coming at you with a handshake, whereas I may bump into you. There was this underlying competition that got in the way of any real conversation.”
It looks like the A-listers never resolved their difference, as they were never seen together on screen after Interview With the Vampire. This led fans to believe that their animosity ran deeper than just friendly competition between co-stars.
Go Like Hell aka. Ford V Ferrari
Released late in 2019, Ford V Ferrari depicts the struggle of Ford Motor Company to beat Ferrari at their own game, the world of international racing. The project was ideated back in 2013, with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski at the heart of it. He had then named it Go Like Hell and had visualized Tom Cruise playing the role of Shelby, opposite Brad Pitt as Miles.
Unfortunately, they were unable to settle on a budget for the film that would make both actors happy. As a result, the project fell apart. It was eventually picked back up and filmed starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale.
“I actually saw it with Tom and we were both thrilled when we saw it. It’s a weird thing to see someone make a movie of something that you had kind of got close to making, but they did an amazing job with it,” Kosinski said.
Ford V Ferrari went on to be a booming box office success, making $225 million at the global box office, and also securing two Oscars.