Brad Pitt turned down a role in Almost Famous causing director Cameron Crowe to weep

It may come as a shock to realize that Almost Famous, the beloved film starring Kate Hudson following a rock band on the road in the 1960s, is now 20 years old.

And to mark the occasion, the film’s writer-director Cameron Crowe is participating in a podcast series entitled Origins to reminisce about making the Oscar-winning film, specifically the rather wild casting journey it took from inception to production.

It turns out that Almost Famous, which was released in September 2000, initially attracted a slate of different but equally appealing stars to portray some of the key roles – including one Brad Pitt. 

Pitt was in the running to play lead singer Russell Hammond, a role that ended up going to Billy Crudup, Cameron explained on the podcast.

‘Brad Pitt was on my mind because I had a really good meeting with him around the time of [Crowe’s 1989 feature debut] Say Anything, and he was just starting out, and he just really had something,’ the Jerry Maguire filmmaker said. 

‘So I called him with this to play Russell Hammond, and we spent about four months working on it. He read with Natalie Portman,’ Cameron continued.

Portman was another of the original casting choices for Almost Famous, having been considered for the iconic role of Penny Lane, which ultimately went to Hudson.

A-list actress Meryl Streep was also being pursued for the project, as distraught mother Elaine Miller… which was eventually played by Frances McDormand.

Both Hudson and McDormand went on to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscars in 2001 for the film, but lost out to Marcia Gay Harden for her portrayal of Lee Krasner in the film Pollock.

And when Pitt ultimately turned down the role after months of working on it, Cameron was crestfallen to say the least.

‘I wept,’ he revealed. ‘I knew that [Pitt] had never fully fallen in love with the character. He had fallen in love with the idea of the character. But maybe there just wasn’t enough on the page.’ 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would beg to differ with that last point, as it awarded Crowe the Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for Almost Famous that year. 

And as for why Pitt really didn’t end up signing on for the film, it may simply have come down to money – after all, the actor was coming off of playing one of the defining roles of his career, in cult hit Fight Club.

Crowe, however, insists that it wasn’t a question of the leading man’s salary. 

‘He told me that wasn’t the case,’ Cameron said. ‘I think it was probably half and half. I think he was also uncomfortable with the age difference between Russell and Penny Lane.’