BRAD - by
Brad Pitt talks about his life, career and why being a good actor is always
better than being a good celebrity.
Brad Pitt has come a long way since he first appeared on the big screen nearly
two decades ago. Back then his first major role—that of the improbable
named Dwight Ingalls in teen horror movie Cutting Class—earned him $12,000.
Nowadays he is a firm fixture in the Hollywood A-list and, as such, can easily
command the $20 million he earned for his last box-office smash Mr and Mrs Smith.
Not bad for a boy from small town Oklahoma.
When William Bradley Pitt was born in the American mid West in 1963, to a trucking
firm managed father and a guidance counselor mother, Hollywood seemed a million
miles away. Throwing himself into high school life, the youngster was involved
in sports activities, debating, student government and musical drama.
He went on to attend the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism
with a focus on a career in advertising. His occasional acting in fraternity
drama shows whetted his appetite for the limelight, however, and leaving university
shortly before graduating he moved to California to pursue his dreams. Supporting
himself by working as a limo driver, a refrigerator mover and a giant chicken,
he threw himself into his acting, taking lessons and joining community theatre
groups. After securing uncredited parts in a couple of forgettable features,
and a small role in soap opera Another World, Pitt auditioned for his first
major role; that of JD in the 1988 cult classic Heathers. Although his talent
was undeniable, casting directors deemed him too sweet for the teen rebel role
that eventually went to Christian Slater. Undeterred he kept at it, finally
securing his first starring role in Cutting Class—but it would be another
two years before he got the break that he needed.
In 1991, Pitt was cast as cowboy stud JD in female road movie Thelma &
Louise. Although his character was a mere plot point on the women’s journey,
and he had a total of 14 minutes of screen time, Pitt’s smouldering charm
and James Dean-esque laid back talent made the character the most memorable
and exciting thing about the whole film. It certainly made Hollywood executives
sit up and take notice as, from that moment on, Pitt turned from jobbing bit
part actor to movie star.
Now, almost 15 years later, Pitt has held on to that title. Speaking with him
as his latest blockbuster Mr and Mrs Smith—in which he plays one half
of an ordinary married couple who are both secretly top-class assassins hired
to kill each other—is released on DVD, he’d had plenty of time to
deal with the pressures of fame. “I don’t feel like I’m in
a cage,’ he laughs. “Maybe I feel more cut-off from the herd than
anything—a lone gazelle with the lions. But I don’t feel constrained
in my personal life by what I do professionally at all. I don’t feel limitations
as a result of what I do. The goal is to stay an artist and not a personality.”
And Pitt’s personal life has been as much in the spotlight as his career
throughout this year, as he divorced his wife of five years, Friends star Jennifer
Aniston, and—much to tabloid delight—struck up a close relationship
with his Mr and Mrs Smith co-star Angelina Jolie. Having been pictured with
both Jolie and her two adopted children, it seems as though Pitt has got the
family that he has famously always wanted, but the pair have remained resolutely
tight-lipped about the situation. Although he won’t talk about it directly,
Pitt has a philosophical outlook on the trials of life. In spite of admitting
that “I’d like to turn back time if I could. I’d like to redo
a couple of things,” he asserts that he’s “a big believer
in that it’s the mistakes that define you as much as anything. It’s
there that you get a real understanding of yourself. You can’t have one
without the other.”
This positive attitude has not only helped Pitt cope with a personal life that
is under constant media scrutiny, but has also been a big influence on the career
choices he has made. By only choosing roles that he feels are completely right
for him, he can assure a good time and a good performance. And, as the actor
explains, this strategy all stems back to some good advice he received while
still in high school. “I played tennis, and I wasn’t bad but I wasn’t
great,” Pitt remembers. “I had a real [John] McEnroe problem, which
didn’t flow too well in the Bible belt! We had a neighborhood tournament
and this guy was kicking my ass. Obscenities are flying about, and I let go
of my racket shouting ‘Bastard!’ Then I see my Dad coming down from
where all the parents are sitting; he was coming over to me in kind of slow
motion, and I had just thrown my racket over the other side of the court. I
think ‘I’m in for it now!’ Then he comes over, and I thought
he was going to smack the s*** out of me because I was really embarrassing the
family. And he goes ‘Are you having fun?’ And I go ‘No!’
And he goes ‘Well, don’t do it’. And he turns around just
as slowly and walked back to the stand and sits down. I was probably 15 at the
time [and] that’s the best advice I ever got.”
This advice certainly hasn’t failed him yet, as Pitt has a resume that
any actor would be proud of, and over the years he has shown himself to be well
versed in a variety of roles and genres. From a fly fishing novice in A River
runs Through it [1992] to a desperate detective holding his own against Morgan
Freeman in chilling thriller Se7en [1995], from death himself in a dark drama
Meet Joe Black [1998] to the nonchalant heist man Rusty in the light-hearted
Ocean’s Eleven [2001] and its sequel, he adept at choosing roles that
are perfect for him at the time. The fact that he turned down a role as an astronaut
in big budget blockbuster Apollo 13 to accept his Oscar-nominated part of a
mental patient in cerebral fantasy Twelve Monkeys [1995] highlights his continuing
desire not to take the easy route with his career. But does the actor have anyone
guiding his hand? “Oddly enough, not anyone specifically,” he divulges.
“I draw more from peers, I think. [Tom] Cruise is a great businessman
and [George] Clooney handles the business better than anyone, you know, he has
fun and he enjoys the business better than anyone I’ve seen. So I think
I draw bits from my contemporaries.”
At 43, Pitt is no longer the youngest kid on the block and, with the likes
of George Clooney, Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis, is now one of Hollywood’s
old guard. Rather than feel threatened by the fresh new talent climbing the
industry ladder behind him, however, Pitt is enjoying the challenges of being
a 40-something movie star. “I really kind of enjoyed it,” is his
characteristically positive take on turning 40. “No more excuses, you
know? I’m responsible, I can’t blame anything on my parents. I’m
responsible for my mistakes and my choices. And the trade-off is wisdom, so
that helps you feel better about things!” So there has been no hint of
a mid-life crisis? “I’d always said I was going to get something
like a Rolls,” the actor laughs. “But then I got too into energy
conservations!”
All joking aside, Pitt is fully aware that many see youth and beauty as the
strongest currency in Hollywood particularly as every move is made the public
eye. And although the actor has certainly got nothing to worry about as far
as looks go, he is aware that he operates within a superficial industry. “You
have to contend with it,” he states simply. “But do I worry about
it? No. But listen, you see yourself getting older and you don’t want
to be left with any regrets. So you do that inventory thing and say ‘Did
I get everything out of it that I wanted to?’ Or ‘I wish I’d
done that…’ I guess you could pound yourself with regrets, but you
just use that as a marker for where to go from there. That’s why, when
a part like Achilles [the character Pitt played in Troy] comes along you go
‘All right, let’s really go for this, because this be the last time
that I’ll do that…’”
Despite that fact that as he approaches his mid-40s, his thoughts are turning
to the future, Pitt is showing no signs of slowing down. With no less than four
films currently in production, including the fabulously named Western The Assassination
of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which he is playing James himself,
Pitt has certainly lost none of his box office appeal. And, as many of Film
Review’s readers will no doubt agree, this is not only due to his effortless
acting style but also his classic good looks, which are most definitely not
diminishing with age. In fact, Pitt’s attractiveness is so widely recognized
that Shania Twain even immortalized it in her song That Don’t Impress
Me Much. Now there’s an accolade. The actor has certainly always been
seen as something of a sex object throughout his career, something which was
perhaps inevitable given his early sizzling performance in Thelma & Louise.
The fact that he is someone who is defined as much by his looks as his professional
ability is not lost on Pitt. “Yeah, I’m concerned about it,”
he admits, “but I’ve pretty much given up worrying about that. It’s
a losing battle that takes up too much time. It gets in the way. I don’t
have anything to do with this image thing, I really don’t. I just do whatever
[film] interests me at the time, and hopefully it’ll keep me honest.”
This is the nature of the beast that is superficial mainstream Hollywood, however,
and Pitt is aware that he is partly responsible for perpetuating his own celebrity
image. “We are required to support the films because there is so much
content out there, so much competition,” he says of the endless publicity
game of which he is a major player. “Part of what they pay us for is to
get out and be supportive, and that’s the honest truth. But the problem
with that is you start to know me and I become a personality and that takes
away from any kind of characters and believability. When you start seeing the
personality, instead of the character, that’s the danger to the art.”
Like it or not, however, Pitt is a major personality, and in fat is one of
the most recognizable and popular figures in the industry today. But what does
he really think of the cultural phenomenon o the modern celebrity? “I
don’t find it silly,” he reveals. “But it can easily go down
the wrong road, when it becomes obsession.” And Pitt has encountered more
than his fair share of obsessed fans. “I remember being in Argentina,
fading off to sleep, and in the room I see this figure come in. It was a little
14-year-old girl who has climbed over the walls and had broken into the house
through an upstairs window.” Thinking about that event seems to make Pitt
have a slight rethink. “What was it Picasso said ‘Fame is a beast;
I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,’ I agree with that to an extent!”
Whatever his feelings on the fame that goes hand in hand with being a movie
star, it’s clear that there is nothing else that Pitt would rather be
doing. Despite all of the press intrusion, speculation and gossip—and
he’s had to contend with more than his fair share recently surrounding
his divorce from Aniston and relationship with Jolie—Pitt remains positive
about the direction his life and career is taking. After proving that he can
do action, romance and comedy with his multi-faceted role in Mr and Mrs Smith,
the actor is keen to find some “new horizons and different directions.
I love to bounce around, back and forth. A lot of accumulated baggage won’t
allow you to do a lot of those.” And, as a man who was once famously quoted
as saying hat he was ‘bored with himself’, can Pitt now say he is
fulfilled? “I forget sometimes I am talking to the world,” he laughs
as he is reminded of the quote.
“it was a completely light-hearted conversation and as usual they found
something and things are spun in different directions. My point was, yeah, I
was a little bored watching myself on the screen and it was time for some reinvention.
New direction was what we were talking about. There are some guys that are fantastic
at appearing the same, they present this guy who we want to see over and over.
I don’t think that would be my strong point.”
So Pitt is determined to keep reinventing himself as he gets older, as he has
done many times in the past. Who can forget how his muscle-bound, gritty performance
in violent drama Fight Club smashed his pretty boy reputation, or how his hard
as nails Irish boxer Mickey in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch proved that he was
more than prepared to get down and dirty for a good performance. The actor readily
admits, however, that when it comes down to choosing his next role, it’s
all down to his gut reaction to the most basic element—the story. “I’ve
passed on good scripts because they didn’t read in the storytelling, and
I’ve taken films where I didn’t get the movie right off the bat.”
But in the midst of all this reinvention and new directions for the actor, could
there finally be a golden statuette on his horizon? “I don’t think
I’m one of those guys who’s considered,” he says honestly
about his chances of being awarded come Oscar night. But he remains as unconvinced
about the whole awards circus as he is about the trappings of celebrity. “I
think there are far too many [awards],” he states. “I think they
should just combine [them all] into one award and call it a day Television was
created to sell things. Awards were created to give a picture a second run.
It’s all about money.” Pitt’s not entirely dismissive about
it, however. “At the same time it’s fun to go and see what everyone
did for the year. So I don’t mean to dismiss them. I’m all for them!
I just don’t want them to give me one when I’m old, because they
feel sorry for me! I really don’t want that!”