High Stories: Brad Pitt and Edward Norton Got Baked Before Fight Club’s Venice Premiere

Photo by Sasha Maslova

Brad Pitt might have quit smoking these days, but back in the late 90s, he was not afraid to light up. On Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, Pitt shared a story about the time he and Fight Club co-star Edward Norton decided to blaze before the Venice Film Festival premiere of the film that would go on to become a cult classic.

“For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to smoke a joint before,” Pitt admitted with a laugh.

It was the kind of decision that feels brilliant when you are already high. You walk the carpet, you take your seat in tuxes, and you light up before the world sees your movie. What could go wrong?

As Pitt tells it, everything. The movie started. The first joke landed. Silence. Nothing. The second joke came. Still nothing. Not a single laugh from the room.

“The movie starts, the first joke comes up, and it’s crickets; it’s dead silence. Another joke, and it’s just dead silence … this thing is just not translating at all,” Pitt said.

For most people, this would be the moment paranoia sets in and the high turns sour. But for Pitt and Norton, the silence made the situation even funnier. They cracked up in the back row, barely able to contain themselves while the rest of the theater sat stone-faced.

“The more it happened, the funnier it got to Edward and I. So we just start laughing. We’re the a—holes in the back laughing at our own jokes. The only ones laughing.”

Picture it. Two young stars, ripped out of their minds, giggling uncontrollably while a room full of critics and international film snobs stare ahead in icy silence. At the time, it must have felt like a disaster. Today, it reads like pure chaos in the exact spirit of Fight Club itself.

The irony is that Fight Club went on to become one of the most iconic cult movies of all time. In Venice, it played like a bomb. Years later, it became a touchstone for an entire generation. Pitt and Norton might have been the only ones laughing in that theater, but in the end, they were just the first to get the joke.

High risk. High reward. And a high story worth retelling forever.