Brad Pitt Is Going From Playing A Stuntman To Doing His Own Stunts For 'Bullet Train'

Brad Pitt knows a thing or two about stuntmen. Last year he collected a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a late '60s stuntman in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — a new career high for the 57-year-old actor. And perhaps that brush with the stunt industry might have awakened something in Pitt, who will apparently be performing his own stunts in the upcoming David Leitch-directed action thriller Bullet Train.

Greg Rementer – the second-unit director and stunt coordinator on Bullet Train, which is now wrapping production – revealed to Vulture, that Pitt performed "95% of his physical stunts" while playing the hitman named Ladybug in the film:

"Brad did 95 percent of his physical stunts — the fighting. He's like a natural-born athlete. He really got in there!"

This is not totally surprising, considering Leitch's catalog of action films that allow stars like Charlize Theron, Dwayne Johnson, and Jason Statham to really get their hands dirty — Leitch and his fellow former stuntman and John Wick director Chad Stahelski emphasize training their actors to actually engage in the fight choreography. "You need those actors to want to do it, otherwise you won't get those genuine characters on the screen," Leitch had said ahead of the release of Atomic Blonde. "I have found with the stuff we've been doing in our directorial careers is getting the actors trained up and keeping them in the action as much as possible."

And it seems most of the star-studded ensemble — which includes Sandra Bullock, Joey King, Andrew Koji, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Zazie Beetz, Masi Oka, Michael Shannon, Lady Gaga, Logan Lerman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Karen Fukuhara, and Bad Bunny — are game to keep in the action alongside Pitt, according to Rementer, who added:

"Never have I ever done so many huge actors in one feature where all of them excelled at the physical movement of our training. So Brad, Brian, Michael Shannon, Hiroyuki Sonada, Andrew Koji — who was already a stud in terms of where he comes from with the show Warrior — all these actors put out some great action and did a lot of their [own] stuff."

Of course, it's likely that Pitt and the other stars aren't allowed to do the really dangerous stuff — that's likely just for the pros — just the physical fights, which can be grueling enough. So we're probably not going to see any Tom Cruise-level antics from Pitt anytime soon.

Bullet Train is based on the Japanese graphic novel Maria Beetle by Kotaro Isaka and centers on half a dozen hitmen from various criminal factions who board the same titular train. Bullet Train doesn't have a release date yet, but we'll likely learn that soon as the film starts to wrap production.