Geena Davis is jokingly taking responsibility for getting Brad Pitt his career-defining role in 1991’s Thelma & Louise.
“Brad earned the part – obviously,” Davis, 68, told Entertainment Tonight at the Bentonville Film Festival in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Thursday, June 20. “There were three other guys that I read with. They wanted to see these four final candidates and who might I have chemistry with. So one by one, they came in – really handsome, really talented – and then the last one was Brad Pitt.”
(The other three actors who auditioned for the role of J.D. were George Clooney, Mark Ruffalo and Grant Show.)
Davis, who famously portrayed the titular character of Thelma opposite Susan Sarandond‘s Louise, went on to tell the outlet that she “was so distracted by how charismatic” Pitt, 60, was that she’d fumble her lines.
“[I was] just, like, so dazzled … and then he got the part,” she added.
Davis previously recalled her and Pitt’s audition during a 2022 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, telling host Graham Norton that she asked producers if they wanted her opinion on who should get the role, to which she enthusiastically told them, “The blonde one!”
Davis also gushed about Sarandon, 77, to whom she remains close to this day.
“We are very close, she has always been and always will be my ride or die,” the Academy Award-winning actress told ET, adding that “one of the most memorable moments of my life is the day I met Susan.”
She continued, “It was [director] Ridley [Scott], Susan and I were getting together, just us, and we were going to go through the script page by page and [see] if any of us had any thoughts or ideas or any little changes maybe that we might want to make.”
Davis also told the outlet that Sarandon came to the meeting ready to make edits to the script, which taught her how to speak up for herself in the workplace – and made her admire her costar even more.
“I swear, we crack open the script and on page one, Susan says, ‘My first line here, I think we should just cut it.’ And I was like, ‘Can people do that? Is it OK to say that?'” Davis joked. “Everybody loved her … There was nothing confrontational about her, she just said what she thought.”
Prior to Pitt’s big break in Thelma & Louise, the actor had a handful of guest-starring roles on TV shows, including Another World, Dallas, 21 Jump Street, Growing Pains and Glory Days, and also appeared in a few made-for-TV movies.
Pitt went on to star in some of the biggest blockbusters and critically acclaimed films in Hollywood, including Interview With a Vampire, Se7en, Fight Club, the Ocean’s trilogy, Moneyball and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, which earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
