How Brad Pitt Really Felt About His Role In Interview With The Vampire

Brad Pitt has had an extremely lucrative career, with defining roles in films like "Inglourious Basterds," "Ocean's Eleven," and "Fight Club." He has never been one to shy away from exploring different genres, and he has dabbled in everything from trippy, time-travel science fiction to gritty thrillers. Early on in his career, Pitt starred alongside Tom Cruise in "Interview with the Vampire," a big-screen adaptation of the gothic horror novel of the same name from well-known author Anne Rice. While it received only moderately positive reviews, garnering a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, "Interview with the Vampire" was a fairly large box office success, grossing $223 million worldwide (per Box Office Mojo).

Now that Pitt has more than achieved superstar status, with films featuring him as the lead grossing over $5 billion at the worldwide box office (per The Numbers), it's easy for him to look back and reflect on his career. As it turns out, Pitt has some rather strong, candid feelings about his time working on "Interview with the Vampire."

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2011, Brad Pitt reflected on his time on the set of "Interview with the Vampire," and he didn't have an overall kind opinion of his experience. When EW remarked the actor looked unhappy in the movie, he confirmed there was a lot of truth to it.  "I am miserable. Six months in the f*****g dark. Contact lenses, make-up," he said. 

It got so bad that one day, Pitt felt as if he had enough. The actor recalled, "One day, it broke me ... I called David Geffen, who was a producer ... I said, 'David, I can't do this anymore. I can't do it. How much will it take to get me out?' And he goes, very calmly, '40 million dollars.'"

Obviously, Pitt did not drop out, but it's interesting to think of a world where he could have. It's also easy to imagine that he was likely not excited about the idea of returning for any potential sequel. Either way, a television show based on Rice's 1976 book — the first in her "The Vampire Chronicles" series — is currently being developed (per Deadline), so the vampire-inhabited world she created will live on in live-action form.