Brad Pitt Nearly Quit Mr & Mrs Smith  5/25/05

Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt came close to quitting movie Mr and Mrs Smith, after his original leading lady Nicole Kidman was forced to abandon the project because of scheduling conflicts.

The Troy star signed to star in the movie and personally approached Doug Liman to direct, after he dropped out of Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain at the last minute.

Liman tells TIME magazine, "(That) cost the studio a huge amount of money.

When you're a movie star and you do something like that, you make it up to the studio by picking another one of their projects."

However, disaster soon struck when Kidman was called back to record more scenes for last year's (04) The Stepford Wives, leaving Pitt in a panic.

"(Then Kidman quit) - which is crazy because now I'm trying to convince Brad to stay in the movie, when he's the one who sent me the script. I could just see the whole film coming undone."

Liman ended up auditioning Angelina Jolie over the phone in England.