A nice segment from an interview with Brenda Blethyn, who played Brad’s mother in A River Runs Through It
What was it like working with Robert Redford, who directed A River Runs Through It?
When I turned up on set in the US we went inside his trailer to talk about my character. He said: ‘Your character is a very hard-working lady. When things get tough she just, erm, she just, er…’ And I said: ‘Gets on with it.’ He said: ‘Excuse me?’ He thought I’d told him get on with it! My character was a Scottish Presbyterian, so I’d boned up on the Scottish accent, but he told me she wasn’t Scottish and that her accent was Middle American. I had three weeks before filming began so I spent all the time in a small town in Montana and just got into conversation with local people until I learnt it.You were Brad Pitt’s mum in that film, weren’t you?
This was in 1992 before he was a star. We had a water pistol fight one day but he cheated because he filled two!
Thanks also Vaska!
Thank also Vaska.
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Redford says it in a perfect southern accent and then talks about lying on the family-room carpet with Billy Carter watching a tape of the Nixon–Kennedy debates in preparation for Jimmy’s debates with Gerald Ford. (Carter woke him at 6 the next morning and asked him if he wanted Cheerios.) But he quickly slips over to the flip side of fame and relates skiing with his son Jamie and Vice President Walter Mondale and how oppressive it was with all the Secret Service.
Then Redford sees a familiar face. A man with long, streaked blond hair and a cowboy squint walks toward him with a rollaway bag.
“Am I interrupting?”
Redford flashes his famous smile at Brad Pitt. “Depends what you have in mind.”
“Nothing good.”
The only clip in the Telluride highlights from a film Redford directed was of Pitt being dragged downriver with a trout on the line in the Redford-directed ‘A River Runs Through It.’
“I was just looking at you when you were younger, fresher, cleaner.”
Pitt grimaces. “Younger, more respectable, and I smelled better.”
They talk about the scene for a moment. Then a sweet thing happens. Both men get more than a little sentimental. Pitt clears his throat.
“I get a little choked up in that bit of ‘A River Runs Through It,'” he says.
“You were great,” Redford tells him.
“Yeah, I get a little choked up.”
Brad Pitt has Melissa Etheridge to thank when it comes to helping land one of his early big screen roles.
Melissa stopped by Access Hollywood Live on Tuesday, where the rocker revealed that she helped school the leading man in the fine art of fly-fishing back in the early ‘90s.
“I love to fish, I grew up in the Midwest and loved to fish, totally a huge fishing and fly-fishing [fan],” Melissa said during the show’s “Three Things You Don’t Know About…” segment.
“I taught Brad Pitt how to fly-fish in my swimming pool,” she continued. “Back when he had to audition. He was up for the part in ‘A River Runs Through It.’ So, he had to learn how to fly-fish. So there we are in Hollywood, in my pool and I’m teaching him how to do it.”
“How’d he do?” Kit asked.
“Well, he got the part. He did great,” Melissa said with a smile.
The former fly-fishing pals have lost touch in recent years, but it appears Brad still holds a special place in Melissa’s heart.
“He’s a wonderful guy,” she said of the leading man. “I haven’t seen him in years. Love you Brad, wherever you are.”
