Brad Pitt cast in Tim Winton adaptation The Riders, let’s hope he doesn’t try to do an Australian accent

Brad Pitt is not a man for accents.

With a career full of dodgy twangs, you’d be right to get your hackles up anytime Pitt deviates from his American cadence. Remember his so-called Belfast brogue in The Devil’s Own? He would probably rather you forget.

Then there was the Jamaican patois in Meet Joe Black, and whatever that indecipherable one in Snatch was meant to be. Somewhere along the way, directors realised you don’t hire Pitt to affect an accent, you hire him to be charming.

The last time he was required to throw on a different inflection was in the 2016 World War II drama Allied, in which he played a Canadian who was fluent in Quebecois French. Apparently, according to native French speakers, he didn’t pull it off.

So, it’s with some scepticism with which we greet the news that Pitt has been cast in a film adaptation of Tim Winton’s Booker Prize finalist novel, The Riders.

For once, let’s hope they turn that Australian character into an American one. The Australian accent is hard enough already for almost every actor who’s ever attempted it (Kate Winslet, Dev Patel, Kaitlyn Dever and Meryl Streep are notable exceptions), but it would be doubly hard for Pitt.

The Riders is primarily set in Europe, with a story about a man who, along with his seven-year-old daughter, goes searching for his wife across the continent after she fails to turn up in Ireland, where the family is relocating.

That’s an easy enough switch to flick if you want to change the character’s origins. None of the international reports have even mentioned Winton is an Australian author.

Shooting is expected to start in Europe in early 2026.

The film is to be directed by Edward Berger, the filmmaker behind Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front, and is being financed and distributed by A24, and produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free banner, Berger’s Nine Hours company and Pitt’s Plan B house.

David Kajganich wrote the screenplay, having been attached to the project since 2018.

There had been previous attempts to adapt Winton’s novel including in 2012 with Sam Worthington signed to play the lead with Timothy Spall and Charles Dance in supporting roles, and with Robert Connolly to direct. That version went through several more personnel changes before ultimately falling through.

Connolly went on to work with Worthington on Paper Planes and would adapt different Winton books, The Turning in 2013 and Blueback, in 2022.

Winton tomes that have been adapted include films of Dirt Music, Breath and In the Winter Dark and a TV miniseries of Cloudstreet. The Riders had previously been an opera.