Brad Pitt Was Almost Cast As The Lead For This Iconic Movie, But Turned It Down

Can you imagine anyone else as Russell Hammond than Billy Crudup in Almost Famous? Turns out that it was almost Brad Pitt who starred in the famous role instead!

Director Cameron Crowe spoke about the casting change in a new interview, and his original casting choices for the roles as well including Meryl Streep as Elaine Miller, and Natalie Portman in the role of Penny Lane.

“Brad Pitt was on my mind because I had a really good meeting with him around the time of Say Anything, and he was just starting out, and he just really had something,” he recalled. “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 added that he actually cried when Brad pulled out of the role.

“I knew that [Brad 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.”

Find out which reality star said that they would date Brad in a heartbeat here!