David Fincher ‘Reinvigorated’ My Love of Acting with ‘Se7en’

Brad Pitt might have quit Hollywood if it wasn’t for David Fincher. The actor recently reflected on how working with the auteur “reinvigorated” his love of filmmaking at a time when he needed it the most.

Pitt said during Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast (in the below video) that after a slew of big budget box office disappointments in the early ’90s, he was reevaluating his life in the summer of 1994. By that time, Pitt had starred in films such as “The Favor,” “Cool World,” and “Legends of the Fall.” (His hit “Interview with the Vampire” wasn’t released until November 1994.)

Pitt recalled it being “the most unhealthy time” in his life, leading him to look to “check out” out Hollywood as whole. “I would wake up, I would get a bong load, I would have four Coca-Colas on ice, no food,” Pitt said. “This particular summer, I watched the O.J. trial, and I was just trying to figure out, ‘What do I do next? What do I do next?’”

It wasn’t until the script for “Se7en” arrived that Pitt felt the desire to work again. “My dear friend and manager and, basically my sister now, Cynthia, sends [the ‘Se7en’ script] over,” Pitt said. “She says, ‘You’ve got to read this.’ I read the first seven pages, I call her up, I go, ‘Are you kidding me? The cliché old cop wants out, the young cop comes in and he’s looking at his high school football trophies?’ She goes, ‘Just finish it.’ Then I go meet with Finch, and he was just talking about films like I’d never heard anyone speak about film. I just got the jones back. Finding that thing kind of … it just reinvigorated what I wanted out of this thing.”

Pitt went on to star in “Se7en,” and would go on to reunite with Fincher for the iconic “Fight Club” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” He will reportedly collaborate with Fincher again for the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” spinoff film about his fictional stunt man character Cliff Booth. Quentin Tarantino wrote the quasi-sequel, which will be released by Netflix.