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Heart of the Beast director David Ayers reveals brutal on-set conditions Brad Pitt faced in wild performance

There’s an adage in show business that one should never work with children or animals. Don’t tell that to Brad Pitt. The thinking is kids and animals probably won’t stick to a script, and are even more likely to upstage you, but the Hollywood superstar of Fight Club and Moneyball leapt at the chance to have a canine co-star in Heart Of The Beast. The survival thriller has Pitt play Sergeant Major James Belmont, a retired Green Beret who carries the physical and psychological scars of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one understands the trauma Belmont experienced better than his former combat dog Odin, the devoted German Shepherd who went through it with him and is also living with chronic PTSD. When a camping trip to the remotest corner of Alaska goes terribly wrong, the pair must rely on their special forces training and each other to navigate an incredibly gruelling trek to safety, while avoiding a variety of wild animals that seek to eat them. Think Marley & Me crossed with The Revenant, which, as it happens, was exactly the sort of project Pitt wanted to do. “The love and joy and even frustration I’ve had with my dogs are undeniable and unique in its relationship,” Pitt admitted. “I wanted to do something that was a tribute to that, to my dogs, and to what they’ve given me. A dog’s love is so unconditional, and there’s a lot to be learned from that.” Reuniting with director David Ayer, after the pair worked together on the 2014 World War II action movie, Fury, Pitt and the crew ventured to New Zealand to find locations that would double for Alaska. That required the production to obtain special permission to film in regions that had never been captured on screen before, places that were so inaccessible life for the crew mirrored the extreme punishment Pitt’s character was subjected to. “There were a couple times where I’m shoving Brad out of a helicopter with a camera to get a shot,” Ayer admits over a Zoom call with The West Australian. “We got up on the glaciers and it was stunning . . . the wilderness is certainly a character in this movie. It shapes and colours the entire experience, and we were definitely at its mercy,” Pitt says. “You had to hike 10 minutes to get to a proper bathroom. And yet the crew hauled massive amounts of gear through ravines and over hills and through the woods. It was impressive.” Those shapes and colours were brought to the screen in spectacular fashion by Mauro Fiore, the Oscar-winning cinematographer who worked with James Cameron on the original Avatar and was behind the camera for Spider-Man: No Way Home. On a regular production it would not be uncommon for the lead actor to remain ensconced in their trailer until being called to set but there were no such niceties for Pitt on Heart Of The Beast. “He stayed cold, wet, tired pretty much all the time,” Ayer says of the star. “I think the philosophy was if you warm up, you’re just going to have to get cold again, and it’s kind of worse that way, so he would be sitting on a log on set, waiting for us to set up the shot, and that’s not typical at all. And there’s something about having him there that not only motivated the rest of the crew, but really motivated me to just capture his work.” So, when you watch the movie and see a pained look on Pitt’s face as he’s emerging from an alpine lake, battered and bruised, it looks authentic. “A lot of it was not acting,” Ayer confirms. “What he did is is very unusual. Doing the water work, going underwater . . . that’s all him in an alpine lake in the middle of nowhere. It was incredibly impressive what he did. He really delivered a physical performance in addition to this very intricate and emotional performance.” Needless to say, there’s nowhere for an actor to hide when the only things on screen are you and a dog. “We’d kind of joke to each other at the end of a typical brutal day, and be like, ‘A guy and a dog, how hard can it be”,” Ayer reveals. “Brad really had an immense amount of work as an actor. He carries the movie in such an incredible way, there’s nowhere to cut to, it’s just the wilderness, him and the dog and his willingness to build the character.” The director, who more recently gave us the Jason Statham actioners, The Beekeeper and A Working Man, says he was more worried about a diva turn from the film’s performing pooch, primarily a giant Kiwi German shepherd named Uber. “They go through hair, makeup, wardrobe, and show up on set ready to work . . . but it could be a little bit chaotic,” the director admits. “The dog will run off and chase a bee when you need him on set, but, when it works, it works like magic.” Ayer credits much of the magic to the time Pitt put in before the production to create a connection with his co-star. “Brad came in early, about five weeks early, came to the kennels, met Uber, worked with Uber, really bonded with him,” he says. “Also, he had to learn how to become a dog trainer . . . so he had sort of double the workload on set, where he has to be responsible for a scene partner, but the connection is real.” Ayer says he cried when he first read the script, with the film’s exploration of PTSD hitting home for the filmmaker, who served as a submariner in the US Navy during the 1980s before getting into the entertainment industry. Heart Of The Beast juxtaposes Belmont and Odin’s struggle to survive in the wilderness with flashbacks to fighting for their lives in combat situations. “People who serve want to help. There’s something in their nature where it’s a calling to help others,” Ayer explains. “And I found that what can haunt them most is losing a friend or feeling they could have done more, and, then, to transition out of that world into the civilian world, going from structure and living by a very specific code and mission and purpose, into the sort of void of civilian life, can be very troubling, and it takes a bit to find yourself.” The film reveals more than 3000 dogs have served in combat for the US military. “Odin suffers from his own PTSD from the experiences of the war, which is a really heavy and beautiful idea that I think the film explores pretty well,” Pitt says. If Pitt got into this project to honour the special bond he’s had with his own dogs, making Heart of the Beast did nothing to dissuade him of its significance. “The experience cemented what I know to be true about dogs and our relationship with them,” Pitt says. “There’s an intense loyalty but they’re also goofy and funny. In the end, we’re less alone in the world because of our dogs.”

exclusiveHeart of the Beast director David Ayers reveals brutal on-set conditions Brad Pitt faced in wild performance

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Heart of the Beast director David Ayers reveals brutal on-set conditions Brad Pitt faced in wild performance