Brad Pitt And Robert Downey Jr. Crossed Paths In An '80s Movie That's Nearly Impossible To Stream

20th Century Studios

You've heard of the Hollywood "Brat Pack," i.e. the young actors who appeared in significant Generation X films like "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink," and "St. Elmo's Fire" during the 1980s, but did you know there was a literary "Brat Pack" emerging in the U.S. at the same time? This was a more exclusive club than the motion picture gang, with Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz, Jay McInerney, and Jill Eisenstadt being its most prominent members. They were brash, daring, and, particularly in Ellis's case, awfully full of themselves.

Ellis' "Less Than Zero" is easily the defining work of this movement. It tells the sordid tale of rich college student Clay, who returns home to Los Angeles for a depressingly debauched winter break. It's a horribly nihilistic but undeniably readable novel and was quite the shock to my system when I tore through it in sixth grade. It was also hugely popular amongst young people, so it was only a matter of time before a film adaptation happened. And while 20th Century Fox struggled to find the right writer for the project (i.e. one who could sand down the rough edges, which, this being 1986, included Clay's bisexuality, loads of queer sex, and a scene involving a snuff film), the movie ultimately struck what the studio deemed a comfortably edgy tone.

Fox also dipped into the Hollywood Brat Pack casting pool and came away with Andrew McCarthy as Clay, Jami Gertz as Clay's high school girlfriend Blair, Robert Downey Jr. as their drug addict best friend Julien, and James Spader as the ultra-sleazy drug dealer Rip. And if you look real closely (assuming you're able to watch the film, seeing as it's near-impossible to legally stream), you'll see a fresh-faced Brad Pitt hanging out at some parties.

20th Century Studios

Pitt did not receive a credit for his blink-and-miss-it performance in "Less Than Zero," but you can pretty clearly make him out as a dancing partygoer as Clay enters a very 1980s holiday bash at a Los Angeles mansion (see above). Pitt turns up again in the background of a tense scene at another party, where Clay gets into a fight with Rip. But again, if you're hoping to glimpse Pitt's brief turn in this movie in decent quality, you're basically out of luck unless you live in the UK, which is currently the only place on Earth where it's available to stream legally.

Pitt and Downey never share a scene in "Less Than Zero," and, some four decades later, they still have yet to hook up for a movie. Interestingly, it took both breathtakingly handsome men a little while to become full-blown stars (though Downey should've rocketed to the top of the A-list on the strength of his work in "Less Than Zero"). Despite earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in "Chaplin," Downey's own addiction issues sabotaged his career until he got clean and became Tony Stark. Meanwhile, Pitt wouldn't pop until 1992 when he heated things up in Ridley Scott's "Thelma & Louise" as the world's sexiest hitchhiker.

As for the literary "Brat Pack," only Ellis went on to have a superstar publishing career. While I liked a couple of his subsequent novels ("The Rules of Attraction" and "Glamorama"), I despised "American Psycho" and quit reading him altogether when I couldn't bear to finish "Lunar Park." I will never listen to his podcast, either.