“Brad Pitt in Brokeback Mountain?” The star reportedly passed on the role alongside several other A-listers due to the “controversial” storyline. Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” is one of the pivotal films in queer cinema. The 2005 romantic drama featuring Jake Gyllenhall and the late Heath Ledger as two closeted gay cowboys in the lead was a belle of the award season, snagging multiple coveted golden statues.
However, fans would be surprised to find that several Academy Award-winning directors also passed on the film after they had trouble getting the project off the ground, as multiple A-list actors, including Brad Pitt, turned down the lead role.
Before Ang Lee took on the script Oscar-winning auteur behind the New Queer Cinema classic “My Own Private Idaho”, Gus Van Sant was tapped to direct the film.
Van Sant told IndieWire he passed on the film after several stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Ryan Phillippe, refused to appear in it.
Van Sant said, “Nobody wanted to do it. I was working on it, and I felt like we needed a really strong cast, like a famous cast. That wasn’t working out. I asked the usual suspects: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Ryan Phillippe. They all said no.”
Van Sant is not the only director who had trouble casting the lead roles. Before And Lee approached Jake Gyllenhall and the late Heath Ledger for the role, the director reportedly pitched the movie to Mark Wahlberg.
Mark Wahlberg felt “creeped out” by the Brokeback Mountain script
The National Enquirer reported that Mark Wahlberg’s Catholic priest advised him to pass on the project. In a 2007 interview, Mark Wahlberg said he met with Ang Lee about the movie but was reportedly creeped out” after reading the 115-page script.
Wahlberg said, “I met with Ang Lee in that movie, I read 15 pages of the script and got a little creeped out.”
Wahlberg said the “graphic, descriptive” nature of the script that told the story of two men in love turned him off the movie. Wahlberg added, “the spitting on the hand, getting ready to do the thing.”
Wahlberg noted that the film was “just not my deal,” adding, “Obviously, it was done in taste—look how it was received.”
Despite Brad Pitt and Mark Wahlberg passing on the “controversial” script, Brokeback Mountain was one of the most financially and critically successful LGBTQ+ films ever.
