Behind the Scenes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith—and More Film Secrets

It’s been 20 years since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took a lot of shots at each other and blew all sorts of things up in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

You’re forgiven if you mainly think of Mr. & Mrs. Smith as the movie that brought Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt together.

The Doug Liman-directed action thriller about married assassins who don’t know what the other does for a living until they’re tasked with killing each other is an entertaining romp. And the premise had enough juice to inspire the recent Amazon series of the same name starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine.

But by the time the film hit theaters on June 10, 2005, Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were in the process of divorcing and, a month later, he was with Jolie in Ethiopia when she adopted daughter Zahara.

And all that, needless to say, kinda dominated the headlines.

Which, incidentally, didn’t hurt the movie—Mr. & Mrs. Smith made almost half a billion dollars worldwide— and everyone who chose sides (there were T-shirts and everything) 20 years ago knows now that marriages and why they end is a complicated matter.

“I think we were both the last two people who were looking for a relationship. I certainly wasn’t,” the then-twice-divorced Jolie reflected in the January 2007 issue of Vogue. “I was quite content to be a single mom with [son Maddox, whom she adopted in 2002]. And I didn’t know much about exactly where Brad was in his personal life. But it was clear he was with his best friend, someone he loves and respects. And so we were both living, I suppose, very full lives.”

Mr. & Mrs. Smith secrets, poster

Moviestore/Shutterstock

At the same time, Jolie has come right out and shared that the Mr. & Mrs. Smith set was where their feelings developed.

“Not a lot of people get to see a movie where their parents fell in love,” Jolie told the New York Times in 2008, saying she was looking forward to screening the film for the six children she and Pitt shared by then.

Of course, family movie night has a different tenor now. The longtime couple eventually tied the knot—their kids really wanted them to, Jolie said—in 2014, but she filed for divorce two years later. She and Pitt were declared officially single in 2019 and they just settled their divorce in December.

“I don’t think it was that major of a thing,” Pitt told GQ recently of the latest development in their messy split saga. “Just something coming to fruition. Legally.”

And to think, Jolie wasn’t even supposed to be in Mr. & Mrs. Smith originally. But she was, and this is what happened—and more behind the scenes secrets:

Mr. & Mrs. Smith secrets
Nicole Kidman Dropped Out of Mr. & Mrs. SmithOpposite Brad Pitt as John Smith, a highly skilled assassin moonlighting as a construction exec, the role of his wife Jane Smith—equally proficient killer/tech support consultant who’s dissatisfied with her marriage—in Mr. & Mrs. Smith was originally going to be played by Nicole Kidman. But she had as scheduling conflict making The Stepford Wives and then a discouraged Pitt moved on to make the Greek war epic Troy.Cate BlanchettCatherine Zeta-Jones and Pitt’s ex-fiancée Gwyneth Paltrow were among the actresses considered in the meantime. All seemed lost for the long-gestating production when Angelina Jolie signed on to play Jane in August 2003. Pitt rejoined the project, thinking a November start date would leave plenty of time for him to go shoot Ocean’s 12 in April.“Nicole’s exit could have been a death blow,” producer Lucas Foster told Variety at the time. “When you have a picture with a star like Brad, it gets heavily scrutinized and at moments of uncertainty, every studio steps in and offers him movies. The key to making this work was the fact that [director Doug Liman] remained so passionately committed and articulate about what he wanted to do with it. It gave Brad confidence and made it possible to get Angelina. We all think they will make a pair that you will want to see battling each other and falling back in love.”
Mr. & Mrs. Smith secrets, Will Smith, Johnny Depp
Mr. Smith Almost Went to Johnny Depp or Will SmithAfter Pitt seemingly left the project for good, they made offers to Will Smith and Johnny Depp.“There were some of us who liked one of them a lot more than the other, and some of us in the camp who liked the other one more,” Liman told Entertainment Weekly in 2005. “The end result is we ended up pursuing both. Then Brad changed his mind and said, ‘I’m interested again.'”He said Fight Club director David Fincher told him, “’Get used to it. That’s just the nature of the beast making a movie with Brad Pitt.’”
Mr. & Mrs. Smith secrets, Angelina Jolie
How Angelina Jolie Started Getting Into CharacterAt the start of rehearsals, “they were putting us together and trying outfits on us, seeing how we look as a couple,” Jolie told Vogue, about a week after she met Pitt. “It’s always so silly; you don’t know somebody and in three days you’re going to be ‘married.’ But he’s lovely, Brad Pitt. He’s very sweet.”She described Mr. & Mrs. Smith as “a study in marriage and how well you know your partner. There’s everything from couples therapy to arguing about the drapes, and you think they’re having affairs, and then you slowly discover that the reason they’re having problems is because they have very different lives and have secrets from each other.”At the time, Pitt had been married to Jennifer Aniston since 2000 and Jolie was twice-divorced, from Jonny Lee Miller in 1999 and Billy Bob Thornton in 2003, each after about three years of marriage.“My opinion of marriage comes from a very cynical place,” Jolie explained. “Do you want to kill your spouse? For me, that’s a serious question. And Brad Pitt comes from a place of: What a funny idea, to kill the person you’re married to, because he has a happy marriage. So we’re actually a very funny combination.”She drew from her past to inform her character. “For me, it was a lot of thinking about old relationships I had—marriages I had,” she told EW before the movie came out in June 2005, “and thinking, Oh, that’s the point where I wanted to kill that person.”
  • Related Posts

    🇺🇸 Stars and Stripes Sisters 🇺🇸

    Two sisters stood side by side at the pool, each wearing a bikini patterned with stars and stripes. The sun glinted off the water, casting playful reflections on their smiling…

    Poolside Glow

    In a bright red bikini, she lounged by the sparkling pool, the sunlight glinting off the water. Every so often, she dipped her toes in, feeling the cool ripple against…

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    You Missed

    🇺🇸 Stars and Stripes Sisters 🇺🇸

    Poolside Glow

    Crimson Waves

    Focused Steps

    Sisters in White

    Dust Trail Sunrise