Brad Pitt missed on a role in John Waters’ cult classic Cry Baby because he was too good looking.
Pitt auditioned for the role of Johnny Depp’s sidekick, Milton Hackett, in the 1990 movie but lost out to Darren E. Burrows.
In his upcoming autobiography, Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder, Waters admits he knew Brad was destined to become a huge star even though he didn’t cast him.
“I may be the only director who turned down Brad Pitt in a casting session,” he writes. “Completely unknown at the time, he came into read for the role of Milton in Cry Baby. We all knew somebody this handsome couldn’t be cast as Johnny Depp’s goofy side kick – we needed a guy with a quirkier look.
“When Brad walked out of the audition room without being cast everyone agreed, ‘Whoever that was, he’s going to be a huge movie star’.”
And Waters admits Brad has never held it against the filmmaker for not casting him: “The few times I’ve seen Brad since at industry events over the years, he has been totally lovely to me,” the director adds. “Maybe because I’m the only director who ever said no to Brad Pitt.”
A year after Cry Baby came out, Pitt appeared in Thelma & Louise and he has been a leading man ever since.
Brad wasn’t the only big name who failed to land a role in Cry Baby – comedienne Carol Channing wanted to play Ramona Rickettes – Cry-Baby’s hillbilly grandmother.
“Even though I knew she was dead wrong I agreed to listen to Miss Channing’s perplexing proposal that she should play the role as a Native American Indian woman,” Waters recalls.