"The Hardest Movie I've Ever Made": How Brad Pitt Survived His Action Thriller 'Heart of the Beast'

Brad Pitt has fought zombies (and will be doing it again), gone to war inside a tank, and climbed behind the wheel of a Formula One car, but none of it was as physically demanding as Heart of the Beast. Speaking with Collider’s Joe Schmidt alongside director David Ayer, Pitt called the survival thriller “the hardest movie I’ve ever made” and revealed that filming often meant getting wet first thing in the morning and staying that way for the entire day.

That grueling experience was not what convinced Pitt to reunite with his Fury director, though. Heart of the Beast follows a former Special Forces soldier and his military-trained dog as they fight to survive in the Alaskan wilderness, but Pitt said it was the story’s emotional ending that brought tears to his eyes when he first read the script. During the interview, Pitt and Ayer also discussed the movie’s physical demands, its portrayal of PTSD, and the remarkable search-and-rescue dog who became Pitt’s scene partner.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Western Icon Are You Most Like? No Name · Doc Holliday · Wyatt Earp · Mattie Ross

Pick your name, your gun, your horse and how you spend a night in town, and we will tell you which legend of the Old West you would have been. Four icons are waiting at the end of this: the stranger who never gives his name, the gambler who would die for a friend, the lawman who never wanted the badge, and the girl nobody has ever talked out of anything.

🚬No Name(Dollars Trilogy)

🃏Doc Holliday(Tombstone)

⭐Wyatt Earp(Tombstone)

🐎Mattie Ross(True Grit)

FIND YOUR ICON →

01

The town is about to learn your name. What do they call you? In a Western, what people call you is already half the character.

AThey never do find it out, so the stranger will have to do. BA nickname I picked up at a card table and never shook off. CMarshal, and most people say it with a bit of respect. DMy full name, and I will correct anybody who tries to shorten it.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

What are you carrying? Everything out here is character, right down to what is sitting on your hip.

AOne revolver I have had for years and have never once talked about. BA pistol, a knife and a deck of cards, and the cards do most of the damage. CA shotgun, because it tends to end arguments rather than start them. DMy father's gun, which is far too big for me, and I am carrying it anyway.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What are you riding? A hero and their horse is one of the oldest relationships in cinema.

ASomething plain that nobody in town would look at twice. BWhatever I won last night, which may not be strictly mine yet. CA big steady horse that will not spook when things get loud. DA pony I overpaid for and named myself, and I will hear nothing against him.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

You have got one evening in town. How does it go? The saloon is where these films quietly tell you who somebody really is.

AOne drink at the far end of the bar with my back to the wall. BAt the card table, holding court, up forty dollars and climbing. CA quick drink, then a walk round town to see that everything is quiet. DUpstairs with the ledger, working out exactly what tomorrow is going to cost.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

A stranger offers you money for a job that sounds like trouble. Somebody always turns up with a full purse and a bad idea.

AI ask how much, and then I ask for a good deal more than that. BI say yes before he has finished, mostly because it sounds like a story. CI ask him who gets hurt if I turn him down. DI ask for the terms in writing before anybody shakes on anything.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Somebody is waiting for you in the street. What does the town see? Two people, an empty road, and everybody else watching from behind the shutters.

ASomebody walking out very slowly who has not said a single word. BSomebody grinning, which everyone watching finds deeply unnerving. CSomebody making one last attempt to talk the other man down. DSomebody far too young to be out there, walking out regardless.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What is the one thing you will not do out here? The code is about the only thing west of the river that actually holds.

AExplain myself to somebody who has not earned an explanation. BRide off and leave a friend standing out there on his own. CLet a whole town pay for a fight it had nothing to do with. DLet a grown man tell me I am too young to be standing here.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

The job is finished. Where does the story leave you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your icon.

AOn a ridge somewhere, riding away, without saying goodbye to anybody. BSomewhere warm and worn out, having enjoyed very nearly all of it. CHome, with the badge on the table and the whole thing behind me. DOlder, changed by it, and telling this story for the rest of my life.

REVEAL MY ICON →

The Dust Has Settled Your Western Icon Is…

Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble. This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.

The Man With No Name

You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to, because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room without you ever having to mention it.

• Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.
• You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
• The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
• You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.

Doc Holliday

You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two things were in any tension.

• Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it, which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
• You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the handful of people you actually care about.
• Val Kilmer's performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
• You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.

Wyatt Earp

You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most Western reason there has ever been.

• Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
• You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who is exposed rather than who is to blame.
• These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
• You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.

Mattie Ross

Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.

• Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
• You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you turn up exactly when you said you would.
• True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen and every adult around her has to catch up.
• You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of you.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Brad Pitt Calls ‘Heart of the Beast’ His Most Physically Demanding Movie

“It’s not like we could go back to the trailer and dry off or anything.”

Image via Paramount Pictures

COLLIDER: Nice to be speaking with the both of you. Brad, was this the hardest movie you've ever made?

BRAD PITT: Physically, I would absolutely say this is the hardest movie I've ever made, but also very rewarding.

Can you get a little into the challenges of it? What was different than you expected on those film sets that you've been on, given your storied career?

PITT: Well, I mean, on the surface, it’s a survival story, so we’ve got to go through extreme situations. It’s not like we could go back to the trailer and dry off or anything. You get in in the morning, you get wet, and you stay wet all day until the end of the day. There is a drudgery involved in that, but at the same time, I’ve got to say, I believe in it because it informs the scene, it informs the characters, and it informs our movie in the end.

So, what drew you to it? The physical aspect of it, or was there something in the script?

PITT: Oh no, what really drew me was the end. David sent me the script, and just reading this ending just really tapped on my heart and brought tears to my eyes, and I just felt like if I had that experience on the reading, then someone's gonna have that experience in the movie. And we have history, and it just made sense. It just felt like all things were aligned in a really lovely way.

David Ayer Found ‘Heart of the Beast’ Through Gentleness

“We really found it through the connection.”

David, you have a very specific style of movie that you like to make. It’s very visceral a lot of the time and very gritty. What was it about this movie? It’s a little bit different, but it still has a lot of your trademarks and sensibilities as a filmmaker.

DAVID AYER: Yeah, absolutely. It’s the story of a haunted man dealing with some of the trauma and difficulties of life. It’s really about two veterans trying to find each other and survive together, and it’s such a beautiful love story. It was an incredible challenge as a filmmaker. But, I mean, I have Brad, I have a dog, and I have this beautiful countryside, so it all made sense and worked.

And especially going into the aspect of two people, two veterans going through it, you handle the aspect of PTSD so beautifully, where it's never really something that is confronted directly, especially because you can't have a conversation with the dog about it, but you can soothe it when obviously someone is going through something and having night terrors and that. So can you speak a little bit about why that was so important to this story?

AYER: Well, I feel we really found it through gentleness. We really found it in the eyes. We really found it through the connection. It’s interesting because Uber was a search-and-rescue dog, so he’s been on helicopters, he’s been in intense scenes, he’s been on rescues, and he was a veteran of that long before he became an actor.

Brad, the way he connected with the dog and the way he was able to manage the dog — I mean, he was managing his own performance, but also the dog’s performance — just did a seamless job.

Brad Pitt Had to Earn His Canine Co-Star’s Trust

“That aspect was something I will always, always remember.”

Now, for the dog, go into the training and build that rapport?

PITT: Well, I want him to trust me too, you know? I want him to know "I got you," and that he feels safe with me and that he can be at ease and be himself. So that was the first thing that I think was most important to sell it. And he's such... I mean, he's so magnificent. I mean it was just... That aspect was something I will always, always remember.

Now, for a movie like this, you've done so many different things. What is your key takeaway for you as an actor doing a survival movie like this, which kind of is outside of your wheelhouse?

PITT: I've always loved a survival movie and always wanted to do one since... Jeremiah Johnson is one of my favorites, and Leo DiCaprio did such a beautiful one. And it was something that always interested me, but it was really the love story at the end and what it said about our interconnectedness, and that we're all going through the same thing, and how much just a little bit of belief and a little bit of kindness, a paw or a hand can affect our daily life and outlook on the world. And that just really, really touched me. It touched me in the reed, it touches me now, and it's what I love most about the film.

AYER: I mean, that's the power of the story, is when you're living through something outside of yourself, you can really survive anything.

Heart of the Beast is in theaters now.

Cast

• 

  Brad Pitt

  James Belmont

• 
• 

  Anna Lambe