Brad Pitt Insisted Gwyneth Paltrow’s Head Stay in the Box in ‘Se7en’

Brad Pitt has been quite chatty lately (guess he really wants you to see ‘Moneyball’), and he’s now revealed that he nearly bailed on ‘Se7en’ when the producers got cold feet and wanted to — spoiler alert — put something other than Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in the box during the final, shocking scene.

“I will do it on one condition: The head stays in the box,” the actor says he demanded before signing on. “Put in the contract that the head stays in the box.” And his second condition: “He’s got to shoot the killer in the end. He doesn’t do the ‘right’ thing, he does the thing of passion.”

Those conditions were both met, but when test screenings began, apparently some execs got cold feet. “They go, ‘You know, he would be much more heroic if he didn’t shoot John Doe — and it’s too unsettling with the head in the box. We think maybe if it was the dog’s head in the box…'”

Obviously, Pitt had his way and David Fincher delivered one of cinema’s most memorable movie endings.

Relive the horror of “What’s in the box?” here.

[via EW]

photo courtesy of the Everett Collection