Brad Pitt covers the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter, and this might be one of his best photo shoots in a long time. His scruff is contained, he looks clean and sober and dear God, the man can wear the hell out of a blue shirt. Much like Brad?s Parade Magazine interview last year, Brad spends some time talking about how depressed he was when he was married to Jennifer Aniston, only this time he doesn?t get so timeline-specific. Brad also discusses how he and Angelina will probably get married someday soon, and how they?ll probably have more kids too. You can read the full THR interview here, and here are some highlights:
On fame and art: “I’ve always been at war with myself, for right or wrong,” he admits. “I don’t know how to explain it more. There’s that constant argument going on in your head about this or that. It’s universal. Some people are better at dealing with it, and they sleep with no pain — not pain, arguments. I’ve grown quite comfortable with being at war.”
On politics: Jodi Kantor?s new book The Obamas describes Pitt as ?awkward? in a meeting with the president. ?I probably was ? you don?t want to impose on a busy man,? he says. But, he?s more interested in Obama himself, particularly whether the commander in chief has stopped smoking, as Pitt would dearly like to do. While backing Obama, he nonetheless was glued to the Republican debate Jan. 19. ?I?m an Obama supporter, no question,? he says. ?But it doesn?t mean there?s nothing to learn from the other side.?
On religion: All his life, Pitt has learned from the other side. That?s what led him to make a leap of non-faith when he rejected his Southern Baptist upbringing. ?I grew up very religious, and I don?t have a great relationship with religion,? he reflects. ?I oscillate between agnosticism and atheism.? Pitt says differences over religion make his parents, William and Jane, “sad, but I have parents that love me unconditionally.”
He was a depressed pothead in the 1990s: While Pitt’s star ascended with 1992′s A River Runs Through It, 1994′s Legends of the Fall and 1995′s Seven, his personal life declined, even following his 2000 marriage to Aniston. “I got really sick of myself at the end of the 1990s: I was hiding out from the celebrity thing; I was smoking way too much dope; I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut; and I really got irritated with myself,” he says. “I got to: ‘What’s the point? I know better than this.’ ” Pitt wrestled with dark thoughts: “I used to deal with depression, but I don’t now, not this decade — maybe last decade. But that’s also figuring out who you are. I see it as a great education, as one of the seasons or a semester: ‘This semester I was majoring in depression.’ I was doing the same thing every night and numbing myself to sleep — the same routine: Couldn’t wait to get home and hide out. But that feeling of unease was growing and one night I just said, ‘This is a waste.’ ”
He stopped smoking pot when? A trip to Casablanca, Morocco, in the mid-to-late 1990s, ?where I saw poverty to an extreme I had never witnessed before, and we talked about inequality and health care, and I saw just what I felt was so unnecessary, that people should have to survive in these circumstances ? and the children were inflicted with a lot of deformities, and things that could have been avoided had become their sentence. It stuck with me.? Almost overnight, he decided something had to give. ?I just quit. I stopped grass then ? I mean, pretty much ? and decided to get off the couch.?
He started helping people before he met Angelina: “I sought out Bono and sat down with him a few times and got involved in some of the stuff he was doing. But it all started before that. It started with private acts,” which he doesn’t define. Inevitably this led him to Jolie, with whom he starred in 2005′s Mr. & Mrs. Smith. While the tabloids gloat about her effect on Pitt, the two were drawn to each other by corresponding concerns. “That may have been one of the things that brought us together,” Pitt reasons. “Certainly, I’ve met very few people more dedicated than she is. She is always studying issues, daily. She has such compassion for the people she works with.”
He wants to marry Angelina: He oscillates, too, on the subject of whether he?ll get married, and it?s clear Pitt has shifted from his promise that this won?t happen until gay marriage is legalized. ?We?d actually like to,? he says of his seven-year partner, Jolie, ?and it seems to mean more and more to our kids. We made this declaration some time ago that we weren?t going to do it till everyone can. But I don?t think we?ll be able to hold out. It means so much to my kids, and they ask a lot. And it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment.? Has he asked Jolie to marry him? ?I?m not going to go any further,? says Pitt. ?But to be in love with someone and be raising a family with someone and want to make that commitment and not be able to is ludicrous, just ludicrous.?
The Jolie-Pitt kids have stolen his cane: Having children, he says, has been ?the most grounding thing.? Would he have more? ?We haven?t closed the book on it. There?s a really nice balance in the house right now, but if we see the need and get that lightning bolt that says, ?We can help this person; we could do something here,? then absolutely.? It was while carrying Vivienne ? one of his children, many adopted, whose ages range from 3 to 10 ? that Pitt fell and hurt his knee, causing him to walk with the cane his friend George Clooney spoofed during the Golden Globes. It wasn?t a skiing accident, contrary to reports. ?I think George went down the line, making things up,? Pitt laughs. ?I was just walking in our backyard, on a hill, carrying my daughter, and I slipped ? and it was those parental instincts: me or her. And she?s fine.? The cane is nowhere to be seen today, and he jokes about how his children kept stealing it until he gave them canes of their own.
[From The Hollywood Reporter]
I?m just including the tabloid-y highlights, obviously, but if you like Brad and/or you liked Moneyball, you should totally read the full piece, because there?s a fascinating backstory as to how Brad personally shepherded that film into existence, and how he was the most hands-on producer ever. I found that very interesting, and it makes sense – part of the reason I loved Brad?s performance in Moneyball was because it felt like a ?lived in? character for Brad – and he actually had been living and breathing the project for years. Sigh? I really hope he wins the Oscar.
Photos courtesy of THR.
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