10 Surprising Reasons Movie Scenes Were Ruined

2013's slavery drama 12 Years a Slave rightly won the Best Picture Oscar, though also received some pushback for a scene many perceived as "distracting."

Brad Pitt makes a small cameo appearance in the film as Samuel Bass, a Canadian labourer who is instrumental in securing slave Solomon Northup's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) freedom despite his scant screen time.

Many complained that the presence of an A-lister like Pitt in such a minor-yet-pivotal role was a misstep, the assumption being that Pitt - who also produced the film and won an Oscar for doing so - hand-picked the "white savour" part for himself.

Yet shortly after the film's release, Pitt was grilled about this and answered very candidly that it was a purely practical decision related to the modern realities of film financing. He said:

"Listen, the cold reality [is] this is difficult material to get made, to get money for. The risk was me being a distraction in a film like this, and this was the best way to do what we needed to do to put the film together. So we quite honestly worked it out that way, and Steve didn't mind."

It doesn't make the scene stick out any less, and Pitt absolutely was a distraction, but if it was the price to be paid for such a towering work of cinema getting made, then it was most certainly worth it.