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Brad Pitt Talks the Time He ‘Did Pass’ on ‘The Matrix’ and His Iconic Roles at the Santa Barbara Film Festival
Brad Pitt has been on a victory lap this awards season. Pitt has won nearly every major award for his Academy Award-nominated role as stuntman Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, giving him the chance to give entertaining speeches and reflect on the journey he’s taken through his lengthy career.
Pitt’s latest stop on the tour was at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where he was honored with the Leonard Maltin Modern Master Award. As part of the celebration, Pitt had an on-stage conversation with Maltin and gave a speech, talking about some of his iconic roles from his career, as well as some of the iconic roles he’s passed on, including for The Matrix.
"I did pass on 'The Matrix,'" Pitt said during the conversation, according to USA Today. "I took the red pill. That's the only one I'm naming. I wasn’t offered two or three. Only the first one. Just to clarify that."
Pitt wasn’t the only top-line actor to miss out on The Matrix: As producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said last year, Sandra Bullock, Will Smith, and Pitt’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood co-star Leonardo DiCaprio all were considered for the role before it went to Keanu Reeves. The John Wick star is now preparing to return for the franchise in The Matrix 4, which is starting filming this winter for a 2021 release with Carrie-Anne Moss and Yayha Abdul-Mateen II in the cast.
With a career like Pitt’s, there are a number of projects that he didn’t end up in—but the actor didn’t want to get too deep into that: "I come from a place, maybe it’s my upbringing, if I didn’t get it, then it wasn’t mine," Pitt said said. "I really believe (the role) was never mine. It's not mine. It was someone else’s and they go and make it. I really do believe in that."
