Brad Pitt received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle", Pitt was unable to "make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity." Roger Ebert stated "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation." In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden in "Fight Club", a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher. Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his
Haunted (Palahniuk novel) carrot," referring to both the mother in the first story and to the total denial of all the parents involved. Purportedly all three of these incidents are based on true stories. According to Palahniuk, the first two tales came from his friends' experiences and the third he heard while shadowing sexual addiction support groups as research for "Choke". In one of these groups, he met an extremely thin man. When Palahniuk asked him how he stayed so thin, he told him "I had a massive bowel resectioning." When Palahniuk asked what he meant, he told him the story which was