You may have seen Brad Pitt do an awesome job as Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane in Moneyball this year. You may also have seen that the movie picked up 6 Oscar nominations too.

None of that would have happened if it weren’t for Brad Pitt. The day before Moneyball was set to shoot, Sony head Amy Pascal became concerned about the direction of the movie and fired director Steven Soderbergh.

“Nobody wanted to buy disgraced goods,” Pitt told The Hollywood Reporter. “It was dead.”

It was dead until Pitt stepped up and saved the film single-handedly. He called Pascal and then went out and recruited a director – Capote helmer Bennett Miller – to make the movie.

“There would be no ‘Moneyball’ without him,” producer Scott Rudin said. “He saved it single-handedly, and he deserves the credit for its existing at all.”

It goes to show how passionate Pitt was about the material. When a project is dead, most actors move on. Especially Pitt, who can have his choice of projects. I’m sure he’s glad he did now – he only delivered the best performance of his career. [THR via Moviefone]

brad pitt, moneyball