Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio Are ‘Back to Being Competitors’ After ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio were thick as thieves making Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood a few years back, but they’ve pretty much ghosted each other since then and now consider each other rivals, a source exclusively tells In Touch.

“They have zero plans to work together again and see Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood as a one-off. They are back to being quite sharp competitors with each other,” the insider says of Brad, 60, and Leo, 49. “They’re going after the same scripts and the same directors and there’s a ton of overlap. Plus, their companies are similarly structured, but Brad’s Plan B has seen a massive influx of investment that hasn’t materialized for Leo’s company, Appian Way, just yet. He’s working toward that and deserves that kind of windfall, but he hasn’t sealed a deal yet.”

The source adds that Brad “continues to have the upper hand” with “big directors.”

“Yes, Leo can do anything with Scorsese, but how many movies does he have left? And it’s become very clear that Quentin Tarantino prefers to work with Brad over Leo. Quentin and Brad just get along on a different level,” the insider continues.

The source concludes, “Furthermore, Brad has completely monopolized his relationship with David Fincher such that Leo has no chance to work with the guy. It’s disturbing how possessive of David Brad is, and it would kill Brad to see David make a movie with Leo. He’s not going to let that happen, period.”

The Hollywood men got their start in acting on the same ‘80s sitcom, Growing Pains, although their appearances were a few years apart — Brad in 1987 and Leo in 1991. The Bullet Train actor and Titanic star simultaneously burst onto the scene in the early 2000s, although they did not appear to have a rivalry at the time. In fact, Brad said in a May 2019 interview with The New York Times that his friendship with Leo was “pretty automatic.”

“We both came on the scene around the same time, we have crossed paths many times, we have the same reference points,” he said. “We have mutual respect and I know when an actor elevates a scene, so we carry that respect.”

After filming Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood with Brad in 2018, Leo gushed about the “terrific comfort and ease” he felt working with his costar.

“We kind of grew up in the same generation, got our start around the same time,” The Wolf of Wall Street star said at a press conference in Cannes in May 2019. “I have to say it was incredibly easy — incredibly easy working with Brad. And I think we together forged, hopefully, a great cinematic bond in a film about our industry together.”