Harrison Ford Discusses His Conflicts with Brad Pitt While Making THE DEVIL'S OWN

As you may have heard, there was a little behind-the-scenes drama between Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt during the production of the 1997 film The Devil’s Own. The two actors both had big egos and they had different visions for the film which ultimately led to a clash of conflicts.

During a recent interview with Esquire, Ford talked about the conflicts between him and Pitt, and he started by saying:

“First of all, I admire Brad. I think he’s a wonderful actor. He’s a really decent guy. But we couldn’t agree on a director until we came to Alan Pakula, who I had worked with before but Brad had not.”

The movie follows Irish Republican Army (IRA) member Rory Devaney (Pitt) as he travels to New York City under the alias of Francis Austin McGuire to acquire weaponry for his cause. However, he unintentionally becomes the houseguest of Tom O'Meara (Ford), an honest Irish-American police officer. As their friendship develops, O'Meara gradually realizes the truth about Devaney's identity and his involvement in illegal activities. The story delves into the moral complexities faced by O'Meara as he wrestles with loyalty, duty, and personal integrity.

Ford went on to say that he wanted to have a more complex storyline for his character in the film, and this is a point during the development where the tension may have started. He explained:

“Brad had this complicated character, and I wanted a complication on my side so that it wasn’t just a good-and-evil battle. And that’s when I came up with the bad-shooting thing.”

Ford is referring to the part of the story where his character witnesses his partner’s bad shooting in the field, and working that subplot into the film was apparently difficult because it led to a script that Pitt and Ford couldn’t agree on. The actor continued:

“I worked with a writer — but then all the sudden we’re shooting and we didn’t have a script that Brad and I agreed on. Each of us had different ideas about it.”

After all these years, Ford now blames himself for the friction with Pitt, saying:

“I understand why he wanted to stay with his point of view, and I wanted to stay with my point of view — or I was imposing my point of view, and it’s fair to say that that’s what Brad felt. It was complicated. I like the movie very much. Very much.”

The Devil’s Own is a movie that I haven’t seen in a long time. I remember not really liking it when I first saw it, but I was a teenager at the time. This actually might be a movie worth revisiting.