Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt almost came close to being rivals in the 2006 cop and mob drama, The Departed, but fate had other plans in store!

The legacy of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt can almost be considered predestined in Hollywood – so powerful is their impact on the industry today. However, the problem with legends is that there can only be one of them at a time. And the world will never settle for knocking either Pitt or Cruise off the pedestal to raise the other.

Interview With the Vampire feat. Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Cruise [Credit: Warner Bros.]

The newer generation with actors like Jacob Elordi, Timothée Chalamet, and Austin Butler have a long way to go before elevating themselves to the level of Cruise and Pitt. Fortunately, once in a blue moon, actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon waltz into the scene and launch themselves off with a bang (or an Oscar, in Damon’s case) which automatically propels them to god-tier fame among the fans.

The Subtle Art of Pitting Leo DiCaprio Against Matt Damon

Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed (2006) [Credit: Warner Bros.]

The Titanic-famed Leonardo DiCaprio and the then-newcomer Matt Damon who was taking Hollywood by storm paired up in the Martin Scorsese mole and rat drama, The Departed. With unequivocal love from the masses for DiCaprio and a rising tide of fans all over the world for Damon, there was a war of emotions that wrestled to take control within the audience while watching the cat-and-mouse game between the two.

There was a certain sobriety and meditative quality to the pace that DiCaprio and Damon provided to the film. There were no chasing trains, planes, and automobiles despite being a cop and mafia drama, and one that could definitely do without the effortlessly smoldering looks and intensity that seem to dominate every frame that Pitt appears in.

Meanwhile, with Mission: Impossible, Cruise cracked a code that seems almost invisible to the naked eye: the actor’s jet-fuel-laced blood that eternally longs for a rush of adrenaline and death-defying stunts to keep him sane. There is no equivalent of that “ailment” in any other artist in the world, let alone the entertainment industry.

As for the director Martin Scorsese himself, he believed Damon emanated “a cocky bravado” that was essential for the role of Colin Sullivan, the mob mole planted within Boston P.D. As for Leonardo DiCaprio, who helped fetch an Oscar for Scorsese with their 2004 film The Aviator, there was no one better suited for the role of Billy Costigan, the undercover cop.

Despite Warner Bros. wanting to cast Tom Cruise in the role of Costigan, Scorsese was fixated on DiCaprio and later revealed:

We said we’d read it and talk in a week. Next day, Leo called and said, ‘If you’re in, I’m in’ and I said, ‘I was going to call you and say the same thing.’

Brad Pitt himself came eerily close to casting himself as Cruise’s on-screen enemy by taking on the part of Colin Sullivan but later retracted himself from the role, letting a real Bostonian aka Matt Damon do the work but still staying attached to the film as a producer after his company Plan B brought the novel to Warner Bros. and helped them adapt and develop it into a screenplay.

But in all sincerity, it would not be Cruise’s cup of tea to work in a film that prides on elements of control to create a tense, subdued, and underrated atmosphere that can later take the audience by an element of surprise.

The Unspoken Rivalry of Tom Cruise & Brad Pitt

Interview With the Vampire (1994) [Credit: Warner Bros.]

Despite working on installment after installment of the Mission: Impossible film series, Tom Cruise has been able to climb to the echelon of movie star status with the caliber and quality of work that he provides. A touch of greatness has permeated every single project that he has appeared in, from Rain Man, Jerry Maguire, and Top Gun to Magnolia, Vanilla Sky, and Interview With the Vampire.

Brad Pitt, on the other hand, has tastefully elevated his craft by appearing in films that pitted his looks and charms against psychologically jarring plots like Seven, Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, and emotionally scarring narratives like Seven Years in Tibet, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and The Tree of Life. Rather than succumbing to the stereotype that assigns good-looking actors to action and rom-com roles, Pitt defied every Hollywood checkbox to even hone his comedic skills in Snatch, Burn After Reading, and Inglourious Basterds.

A movie pitting such a multifaceted Tom Cruise against a timeless Brad Pitt would certainly have fed generations, but it is one of fate’s cruel tricks that the two actors have been interlocked in a rivalry of their own since Interview With the Vampire that defiantly prevents them from working together as co-stars.

The Departed is available to rent/buy on Prime Video and Apple TV.