Category: Thelma & Louise

Susan Sarandon is looking back on her time spent filming Thelma & Louise alongside Brad Pitt.

During a recent interview with Extra, the 74-year-old actress discussed the 1991 film, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary, sharing that she never thought it would become a classic. “I just thought it was so fun, we were kind of like a cowboy movie except with women and trucks instead of horses and guys,” she said.

In the trailblazing film, Louise (Sarandon) and Thelma (Geena Davis) embark on a road trip that quickly devolves into a crime spree. The women evade authorities one final time by driving to their deaths in the Grand Canyon.

The movie also features Pitt, 57, as a cowboy drifter called J.D., in what was one of his earliest roles. Sarandon told the outlet that Pitt’s performance in the film surprised her.

“When I saw the film, the part that really impressed me, in addition to his good looks and great body, was his sense of humor because he really fleshed that part out in a way that wasn’t necessarily in the script,” Sarandon said. “I thought, ‘Ah, this guy’s interesting, you know, he’s not just a really gorgeous face.'”

“He took it as a character part and as we can see from his career, he really continued to push the envelope in ways that he really didn’t have to when you look like that,” she added.

In February 2020, Davis, 65, also shared her thoughts about Pitt in his breakout role alongside her in the film.

“He just has ‘it.’ I could tell when he was auditioning that he was super talented,” she told PEOPLE after the actor snagged his first Oscar. “He has done so many incredible things over the years. I don’t think that it is unusual for him to be honored. He really is the ‘star’ of the moment, which is fabulous, and it is just great to see.”

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It was the role that put Brad Pitt on the Hollywood map: that of J.D., the sexiest grifter in film history, who – in the words of Louise (Susan Sarandon) – lays Thelma (Geena Davis) properly.

“There were five candidates for the part,” Davis told EW during our Thelma & Louise reunion. As the actress recalled, she did screen tests with all the possible actors, and while director Ridley Scott didn’t immediately ask Davis for her opinion on the quintet, she had one at the ready.

“They didn’t ask me afterward what I thought,” she told EW of Scott and the film’s casting director. “I said, ‘Do you want to hear what I thought?’ They said, ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ I said, ‘The blond one! Hello?’”

Pitt, that aforementioned blond one, has since become an international superstar, and according to Sarandon that’s because of how he plays off his appearance. “He, Johnny Depp… there are a few of these guys who are so beautiful, and yet they played characters,” Sarandon said.

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