He taught Brad Pitt how to ride a horse: Legendary Alberta-based Hollywood animal wrangler to receive award

Alberta film producer and stuntman John Scott hand feeds two of his horses on his 5000 acre ranch near Longview, Alta., Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

LONGVIEW — Legendary Alberta stuntman and animal wrangler John Scott says he was always better at faking stunts on a horse for the big screen than doing the real ones at rodeos.

His skills made it to Hollywood movie sets and later helped him teach actors Brad Pitt and Jackie Chan the ways of the saddle on his ranch near Longview in southern Alberta.

“(Chan) had never been on a horse, but after 15 days he looked like he had been on a horse forever,” Scott said of Chan in the 2000 film “Shanghai Noon.”

Pitt was a perfectionist, added Scott, and unsurprisingly looked good riding horses in the 1994 movie “Legends of the Fall.”

In a building on Scott’s sprawling ranch-turned-movie set, where deer run wild and a river flows, a photograph signed by Pitt reads: “I’d say we went through some horses — thanks for showing me the ropes.”

Scott is set to receive the Alberta Order of Excellence in October.

He’s being recognized for his five-decade-long career of wrangling animals, working as a stuntman, scouting locations and providing livestock for Hollywood and Canadian movie sets, as well as advocating for Alberta’s motion picture industry.

“It’s quite an honour,” he said. “We’ve made seven Academy Award-winning pictures here in Alberta.”

Scott won’t say exactly how old he is. “Early 80s is good enough, isn’t it? You get older and nobody wants to hire you.”

He said Pitt’s western is one of his favourite flicks. He has watched it at least 10 times.

He also loved working with Chan. Every Saturday night during the movie shoot, Chan took out the 250-member film crew for Chinese food.

“He’s such a gracious man, and just a great actor to be around,” Scott said.

Born in Calgary, Scott said he tried to compete in rodeos after high school.

“I wasn’t real good at it.”

A friend told him movie producers were looking for extras who could ride horses during a winter shoot on Mînî Thnî, a First Nation west of Calgary, for $25 a day.

That’s how he was featured in his first film, the 1970 western “Little Big Man” with actor Dustin Hoffman.

Colleagues on set encouraged Scott to go to Hollywood to learn the ropes. He worked there for $100 a day on production sets of various shows.

Back at home in 1972, while working to preserve his grandfather’s 1904 homestead and taking care of the horses and cattle, producers of “Prime Cut,” featuring Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, came to Alberta.

Scott was hired to be a stuntman for Hackman, because their tall figures and facial features were similar.

“Wonderful man. Great actor,” Scott said. “He could have done a lot of his own stunts. But they’re not allowed to, because if they break an ankle, the whole shoot is shut down for quite a while.

“A stuntman can break his ankle, break his neck, break his back, whatever ... the show will still go on.”

The TV movie pilot of “Little House on the Prairie” was the first thing shot on Scott’s ranch, in 1974.

Next was the 1976 film “Buffalo Bill and the Indians,” in which Scott also worked as a stunt double for Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster.

He worked again as a stunt double for Hackman in 1983’s “Eureka,” a movie loosely based on the true story of gold tycoon Sir Harry Oakes, who found his fortune in Canada but moved to the Caribbean for tax reasons and was murdered.

While in Jamaica for the film, Scott performed one of his most memorable stunts.

He remembers it was raining. “I had to ride a motorcycle down the street, and these gangsters are trying to kill me with the car,” he said.

He had to quickly get off the motorcycle just before it was run over.

Scott said he has never had major injuries. Car airbags have exploded in his face, but luckily he never broke his neck.

After “Eureka,” Clint Eastwood came knocking.

Parts of his 1992 movie “Unforgiven,” Eastwood’s tribute to the westerns that defined his career and got him two Oscars for best picture and best director, were shot on the ranch.

The mansion featured in the movie still stands, as well as an old town set, both of which were used for the 2000 film “The Virginian.”

Scott said he has lots of memories of gunfights and wrangling horses running up and down the sets’ streets and rolling hills. Of course, he also remembers falling off horses and nearly getting trampled.

Recently the town set was turned into a Mexican community for “Billy the Kid,” an epic romantic western series streaming on Paramount. Scott has provided his grandfather’s original wagons and livestock for the show.

More upcoming movie shoots are scheduled, Scott said.

While driving his truck around the ranch, bullets for killing gophers jingling in the pickup’s compartments, he talked about how his three daughters now help him take care of the business.

He said he doesn’t know how much longer he will work, though, or when it will be time to finally ride into the sunset.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2025.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press