Time flies, but George Clooney is still a little jealous. “I didn’t watch Thelma & Louise for years because I was annoyed,” he told the Times this weekend. The reason? Brad Pitt. “I got to the final test for a role in Thelma & Louise,” says Clooney, “And, motherf-cker, Brad got it.”
“The part launched his career in film,” Clooney continues. “He was doing sitcoms and crap before, so when it was the thing that could’ve launched me? F-ck!” Now a global star at the age of 64, he nonetheless jokingly moderates: “He gives me shit. But of course, when I saw it, I was like, ‘Well it had to be that guy.’” When Ridley Scott’s feature film was released in 1991, Clooney was in his 30s, dreaming of a career in cinema but confined to a few television appearances. Like Pitt, he was counting on the role of J.D., a cunning and charming hitchhiker, to launch his career. Although J.D. is not the main character, he’s nonetheless become as cult famous as the landmark film itself. The scene in which the hair dryer is brandished like a pistol, in particular, is etched in the memory.
For Pitt, landing the role was no easy feat: “I just thought, I’m the guy for this,” he recalled in an interview with W Magazine in 2023. But they auditioned several other actors. “I didn’t get the part at first, and then it came back around and I didn’t get it again, and I went, ‘Huh. All right. Moving on.’ And then it came back around again. I feel like it was three times.”
Among the actors also considered were William Baldwin and Mark Ruffalo. In the end, it was Geena Davis who had the last word. In 2022, Davis recalled her auditions with the numerous candidates: “Each of them were very handsome,” said Davis. “They all had brown hair and were very talented. I didn’t care who it was going to be. Then the fourth one comes in, and it’s Brad Pitt. He’s so charismatic and so incredibly talented that I was screwing up his audition.” The actress was so taken aback by this encounter that she had forgotten her own lines.
So when Scott came to her after the auditions to ask which actor she’d like to share the screen with, the answer was clear: “The blond one!” She didn’t discover the identity of the final candidate until later, during a flight. The passenger next to her soon confided his disappointment about missing out on the role of J.D. “I said to him, ‘Oh, did you want the part?’” says Davis. “He said, ‘You couldn’t tell when I auditioned with you?’” The actress had been so fascinated by Pitt that she had totally forgotten about her tryout with her fellow actor.
