Introduction
Forever labeled as the world’s “best-looking” actor, and one of the “sexiest” men alive, William Bradley Pitt has spent the last four decades in Hollywood trying to prove that he’s a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body. For the most part, he’s succeeded, opting to star in quirkier roles and work with prestigious writers and directors. Still, there is ‘that scene’ in his breakthrough role in Thelma & Louise (1991).
Thirty-five years into his career, Pitt has successfully bridged the gap between handsome leading man and character actor perhaps better than anyone in the history of the medium. In celebration of his sixtieth birthday (December 18), Cinema Scholars presents a Spotlight article on the incomparable Brad Pitt.
Beginnings
Brad Pitt was born William Bradley “Brad” Pitt on December 18, 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The older brother to Douglas and Julie, the siblings were raised in a conservative Christian household by his father, Bill Pitt, who managed a trucking company, and his mother, Jane Pitt, a school counselor. The Pitts would relocate to Springfield Missouri when Brad was still very little. It was in Springfield where the future Oscar winner’s formative years were shaped. As the actor would later explain on an episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio in 2012:
“It’s Mark Twain country. It’s Jesse James country. A lot of hills, a lot of lakes. I got my first BB gun – preschool. I got my first 12-gauge in kindergarten or first grade. I was shooting sh*t up a year later”
Surrounded by a deeply religious family yet given the freedom to run around and discover nature on one’s own, Pitt soon found himself at Kickapoo High School in the early 1980s. There he took an interest in sports, student government, debating as well as being a member of the school’s drama club. Pitt attended the University of Missouri, where, according to the actor, he did ‘just good enough’ academically. He joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity and started to pursue a possible career in journalism, focusing on advertising. However, Pitt never graduated, instead moving to Los Angeles during his senior year.
A Working Man
Pushing back against the religious Baptist ideologies that were waiting for him in Missouri, Pitt was determined to make it on his own in Los Angeles. He told his parents that he was enrolling in the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. However, the reality was that Pitt was taking on numerous odd jobs while trying to make it as an actor. He moved furniture, drove a limo, delivered refrigerators, and even dressed up as a chicken for a chain of restaurants. More importantly, was that Pitt began taking acting classes.
In typical Hollywood fashion, Pitt found legendary acting teacher Roy London by accident. When Pitt was chauffeuring a young actress to a job, she mentioned to him a new teacher who was doing wonders for young actors trying to break through. Pitt and London would remain close until Roy died in 1993 from complications due to AIDS. London had befriended and taught some of Hollywood’s greatest: Sharon Stone, Garry Shandling, Hank Azaria, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, Geena Davis, and so many others. Pitt spoke to Backstage in 2012:
“When I first moved to L.A., I discovered Roy London. I didn’t know anything about the arts, the profession; I had no technique, I knew nothing, I’m fresh from Missouri. I sat in on a few classes, and they just felt a little guru-ish and just didn’t feel right to me. Until I met Roy…He was tough, lovely, compassionate, tough. I give him full credit for pointing me in this direction…I studied with him for three years, I think, then started getting some work. Then I would work with him individually on projects”
Getting Noticed
Now studying acting full-time with Roy London and working several jobs to pay the rent and bills, another stroke of good luck happened to Pitt. He got an Agent. In another classic example of being in the right place at the right time, Pitt had accompanied an acting classmate to an audition with an Agent. It was Pitt, however, who impressed the Agent. After seven months of working in Los Angeles, Brad Pitt finally had his foot in Hollywood’s door.
Pitt’s first acting jobs came in television. He appeared in four episodes of the immensely popular primetime soap, Dallas, as the perfectly coiffed Randy. He was also Chris on two episodes of the daytime soap Another World. Pitt also appeared on Growing Pains in 1987 and 1989 (as two different characters). Another launching pad for friend and co-star Leonardo Di Caprio. Pitt also had uncredited roles in No Man’s Land and Less Than Zero, both released in 1987.
1988 would be the year that Pitt would start getting attention. He appeared in his first starring film role as Rick in the Yugoslavian–U.S. co-production The Dark Side of the Sun. He stars as a young American taken to the Adriatic by his family to find a cure for a rare skin disorder. Pitt was selected out of 400 candidates for the lead role and paid $1,523. The actor also had a co-starring role the same year in the television movie A Stoning in Fulham County.
Breakthrough
In 1989, Pitt portrayed Billy, a drug-addict pimp to a teenage runaway (Juliette Lewis) in the NBC TV movie Too Young to Die. Pitt and Lewis began a relationship and would soon move in together. For the next couple of years, Pitt appeared in several non-eventful TV and featured films, enjoying his life as a working actor. In 1992, however, everything would change when Geena Davis and director Ridley Scott would alter Brad Pitt’s life forever. Pitt spoke to W Magazine in 2023 about his breakthrough role in Thelma & Louise (1991):
Yeah, that was my entry into the big leagues, I guess. Geena (Davis) was so sweet and kind and delicate. That love scene I think, went on for two days of shooting. She took care of me…But they went through a couple of other actors. I didn’t get the part at first, and then it came back around and I didn’t get it again, and I went “Huh, all right. Moving on!” And then it came back around again. I feel like it was three times”
Pitt had auditioned for the part of hustler J.D. However, director Ridley Scott thought he was too young for the role and passed. The part was given to Billy Baldwin, who dropped out in pre-production. George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Grant Show, James LeGros, John Mellencamp, Dylan McDermott, and Dermot Mulroney were all up for the role of J.D. It was Geena Davis, however, who had lobbied for Pitt as she felt her chemistry was best with him.
Getting Serious
Wanting to choose his path to success, Pitt didn’t want to cash in on his new-found sex symbol status. His next couple of films after Thelma & Louise were quirky and low-budget. The indie film Johnny Suede (1991) directed by Tom DiCillo didn’t do much to advance the actor’s career, but it showed he had real chops and could indeed be a character actor with matinee idol good looks. It would be teaming up with another A-list director, however, that would, again, take Pitt’s career to the next level.
With Pitt pretty much done with television, the rising star was looking for scripts that would be both interesting as well as financially viable. That would come when his agent showed him a screenplay based on author Norman Mcclean’s acclaimed collection of short stories, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, first released in 1976.
With Oscar-winning director Robert Redford set to direct A River Runs Through It (1992) this was a huge opportunity for Pitt to officially become a Hollywood leading man. While the film was a box office success (grossing $66 million on a $12 million budget) and Pitt earned rave reviews for his performance as Paul Mcclean, Pitt felt that he could have done better. The actor reflected on his disappointment in his performance to Entertainment Weekly in 2011:
“That was a big deal. I grew up on Redford films, and Newman films, and Clint Eastwood, and a lot of the Westerns. It was a beautiful story and one I understood because of how I grew up…But I don’t think I was skilled enough. I think I could have done better. Maybe it was the pressure of the part, and playing someone who was a real person…and not wanting to let Redford down”
QT and Vampires
Pitt continued to hone his craft in the early 90s, preferring to star in lower-budget indie films or only working in bigger-budget films if a quality director was attached. The actor was building a quality resume. This continued with the box-office bomb Kalifornia (1993). The film was a flop but Pitt delivered a primal and sadistic performance, going completely against his ‘typical’ character. Teaming up again with off-screen partner Juliette Lewis, the pair delivered stand-out performances in an otherwise forgettable road thriller.
Pitt also entered the orbit and universe of Oscar-winning director Quentin Tarantino as the actor appeared as Floyd in True Romance (1993). Written by Tarantino as the director was quickly becoming the next big thing, Pitt co-stars as Floyd, a stoner roommate to Christian Slater and Michael Rapaport. While Pitt was only on screen for a few minutes, his comic relief turn as Floyd has since become the stuff of legend. Pitt and Tarantino would reteam again, down the road.
Pitt’s next two films would cement him as a box-office draw. He starred as the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in Interview with the Vampire (1994), based on Anne Rice’s classic 1976 novel. Co-starring with superstar Tom Cruise, Pitt held his own. While the actor’s reviews were mixed, the film was a box-office smash. He followed that up with Legends of the Fall (1994), co-starring Anthony Hopkins and Aiden Quinn. Pitt’s physicality and good looks were on full display. Nominated for his first Golden Globe Award, he was named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1994. Brad Pitt’s time had come.
Fincher and Gwyneth
With Brad Pitt securing his position as a credible star following the success of Legends of the Fall and Interview With a Vampire, quality scripts started to come his way. Pitt, again, wanted to avoid the ‘pretty boy’ roles as much as possible and was intrigued by Andrew Kevin Walker’s dark, violent, and creepy crime thriller script, Seven (1995). Numerous directors had been attached and subsequently walked away or were dropped. David Fincher was primarily known for directing gothic and disturbing music videos and the much-maligned Alien 3 (1992). Fincher, who was delivered the script by his agent, was uninterested in another studio-meddling nightmare.
David Fincher found himself thinking about Walker’s screenplay. Specifically, the methodical serial killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey). Walker’s script had been shunned by most studios as it was too bleak, especially, the ‘head-in-the-box’ ending. After a dozen re-writes to make the characters more likable, New Line Cinema stepped up and decided to fund the film, with the controversial ending, which Pitt, Fincher, and Walker all insisted needed to be in the film. David Fincher spoke to The Guardian in 2009 about his experience making Seven:
“So this script was floating around and my agent, who’s very sweet and always very hopeful, said, “You know, New Line is interested in this. You might like this, and they might want to make it with you, so maybe you should read it…So I read it, and got to the end, with the head in the box, and I called him and said, “This is fantastic, this is so great because I had thought it was a police procedural; now it’s this meditation on evil and how evil gets on you and you can’t get it off.
Co-starring Morgan Freeman Seven once again shows that Pitt could be a box-office force without starring in the standard Hollywood fare. The film, even with its gore and violence, grossed an astonishing $327 million on a $34 million budget. Pitt also began a much-publicized relationship with co-star, Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow later revealed that Pitt had defended her against disgraced and imprisoned Miramax head, Harvey Weinstein after she had been sexually harassed by him. The actor threatened to kill Weinstein if he ever did anything to Paltrow again. Pitt spoke to CNN in 2019:
“At that moment, I was just a boy from the Ozarks on the playground and that’s how we confronted things…I just wanted to make sure nothing was going to happen further because Paltrow was going to do two [more] films [with Weinstein]. I think the interesting thing is that we, Hollywood specifically, but the workplace, men’s and women’s dynamics are being recalibrated, recalibrated in a very good way that is long overdue. And I do think that’s an important story to tell”
Recognition
Brad Pitt, wanting to do it his way in Hollywood, continued to choose unconventional and unglamorous projects following the surprise success of Seven. The actor next portrayed extreme environmentalist and mental patient Jeffrey Goines for Terry Gilliam’s futuristic sci-fi thriller 12 Monkeys (1995). Co-starring Bruce Willis, Pitt’s borderline psychotic performance earned the actor his first Academy Award nomination. Partially due to the previous success of Seven and Legends of the Fall, 12 Monkeys was another box-office hit, grossing almost $170 million on a modest $30 million budget.
As the millennium drew nearer to its conclusion, Brad Pitt continued to star in films that challenged him artistically and helped him avoid being typecast. He also wasn’t afraid to share the screen with big names that would help him better hone his craft. The Devil’s Own (1997), co-starring Harrison Ford. Meet Joe Black (1998), co-starring Anthony Hopkins, and the now iconic Fight Club (1999), co-starring Edward Norton and re-teaming with director David Fincher. All of these films showed that Pitt wasn’t your typical leading man.
1997 also saw personal drama take a front seat in Pitt’s life as the actor’s engagement to Gwyneth Paltrow had fallen apart during the production of Meet Joe Black. While there has been much debate and speculation as to why the pair called it quits, nothing has ever been officially revealed. The couple have remained close friends for decades. Paltrow eventually reflected on her breakup with Pitt on The Howard Stern Show in 2015:
“I think I was a kid and I wasn’t ready. He was too good for me…I honestly do think I was too young and didn’t know what I was doing…I mean I was 22 when we met and it’s taken me until 40 to get my head out of my ass. You can’t make a decision when you’re 22 years old”
Stardom and Giving Back
In 2000, Pitt was once again named the Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine. He was the only man ever to be crowned the ‘achievement’ twice. Pitt also was engaged again, this time to Friends star Jennifer Aniston. The couple had been set up on a date by their managers in 1994 when both Pitt and Aniston were newly single. After six years of dating, the pair married in a lavish ceremony in Malibu. Pitt wanted the private estate he had rented to look like a Zen garden, so he ordered fifty thousand wisterias, tulips, lotus flowers, and roses. It was the wedding of the year.
Pitt continued the trend of starring in lower-budget films into the new century. However now, it seemed the actor was beginning to have a little more fun on screen. He appeared as an Irish bare-knuckle gypsy fighter in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000). Pitt chewed up the almost incoherent and unintelligible dialogue with verve. The critics singled out Pitt for his ‘comic outrageousness’ as well as his physical performance. He even dived into the mainstream by co-starring in the largely forgettable romantic comedy The Mexican (2001), co-starring Julia Roberts.
Pitt also began to use his money and fame towards helping others and humanitarian efforts. This began as early as 2001 when he traveled to Turkey to visit U.S. troops. Pitt had in tow with him the cast of his new film Ocean’s Elven (2001). The action/comedy heist film was a big-budget splashy remake of the Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin film from 1960. Director Steven Soderbergh’s version was jampacked with A-listers; among them, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon. Pitt also became an outspoken supporter of stem cell research, and AIDS research, as well as combating disease and poverty in third-world countries.
The A-List
“I had to do Troy because…I pulled out of another movie and then had to do something for the studio. So I was put in Troy. It wasn’t painful, but I realized that the way that movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be. I made my own mistakes in it…I could not get out of the middle of the frame. It was driving me crazy. I’d become spoiled working with David Fincher. It’s no slight on Wolfgang Petersen…But somewhere in it, Troy became a commercial kind of thing. Every shot was like, ‘Here’s the hero!'”
Brangelina
When Pitt started production on Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) with Angelina Jolie, rumors immediately started of an affair between the two A-list stars. Both parties denied any onset shenanigans. Adding to this was that Jennifer Anniston was reportedly putting off motherhood to pursue a film career, making the strain on her marriage to Pitt even worse. Jolie, on the other end of the spectrum, was already an established star who had won an Academy Award. She already had an adopted son and was ready to settle down and have a family. Jolie also was dedicated to charity work, and humanitarian efforts, much like Pitt.
In January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced their separation after almost five years of marriage. It’s reported that immediately after the breakup, Pitt spent his nights in various Los Angeles hotels. His personal life was now being more scrutinized than ever as Mr. and Mrs. Smith was another box-office success. While the pair maintained that there were no on-set infidelities, the Paparazzi were following them both everywhere. The term ‘Brangelina’ was born of this constant stalking of the new power couple.
Aniston filed for divorce on March 25, 2005, citing irreconcilable differences. In April, Pitt and Jolie were seen together on the beaches of Kenya, together with her son. The paparazzi went wild. In 2006 Pitt adopted Jolie’s two adopted children, Maddox and Zahara. Hollywood’s new IT couple had their first biological child, Shiloh, in May 2006. The following year they adopted a boy from Vietnam and in 2008 they added biological twins, Knox and Vivienne, to their growing family. The pair would finally marry in 2014. Throughout all of this, Pitt continued to star (albeit less frequently) in quality projects.
Middle Age and Old Friends
Brad Pitt seemingly had it all by the age of forty-three. A successful acting and producing career and a thriving personal life with Jolie, replete with kids and family vacations. As such, Pitt settled into middle age, only wanting to appear in films with directors that he either felt comfortable with or who he respected. The result was that he was transitioning into a true character actor who could also fill seats. It would also turn out to be one of the most productive periods of Brad Pitt’s long and prestigious career.
Pitt had backed out of a role in The Departed (which he produced), to appear in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s critically acclaimed drama Babel (2006), co-starring Cate Blanchett. He also reteamed with Steven Soderbergh and the usual cast of characters to film Ocean’s Thirteen (2007), another box-office hit, albeit not as successful as the previous two installments. 2008 would be a highlight year for Pitt as he again collaborated with David Fincher (and Cate Blanchett) on the romantic fantasy/drama The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). The result would be another box-office success and Pitt’s second Oscar nomination.
In 2009, Pitt again reunited with Quentin Tarantino in what would be one of Pitt’s most beloved performances in one of Tarantino’s greatest films, Inglorious Basterds (2009). In the World War II revenge film, Tarantino plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Nicknamed “Aldo the Apache” due to his trademark Nazi scalping, Pitt feels right at home playing a thickly-accented bootlegger and coal miner from the smokey mountains of Tennesee, on a mission to kill Hitler. It’s an all-time performance by Pitt and not the last time that QT and Pitt would collaborate.
Marriage and Charity
As the second decade of the new millennium began, Brad Pitt seemingly had it all. Fame, money, an extended family, and a happy marriage. The one thing missing was recognition by his peers. Pitt would again get his chance with the release of the critically acclaimed biographical film, Moneyball (2011). Co-starring Jonah Hill, Pitt portrayed the General Manager of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane. With a sharp script by Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, Pitt delivered a tremendous performance, earning him another Oscar nomination; This time for Best Actor. He would lose to Jean Dujardin for his performance in The Artist.
This period of Pitt’s life was indeed a busy one, both professionally and personally. Between 2011 and 2014 the actor starred in an incredible eight feature films. Some of the standouts included Moneyball (2011), The Tree of Life (2011), World War Z (2013), 12 Years A Slave (2013), and, the outstanding Fury (2014). Pitt and Jolie, who now had six children, announced their engagement in April 2012 after seven years together. They formally tied the knot in Los Angeles on August 14, 2014, with a lavish ceremony in France later in the month. Pitt spoke with British GQ on making marriage work:
“…This was the first time we couldn’t make it work. Angie had to start her film in Australia, and I was starting here in England (on Fury), so the kids would come back and forth. Some would be there, and some would be with me. And we’d be flying back to see each other, for, you know, just a day – 24 hours R&R. We really felt it…that was the way (letters) to communicate, and because we were on different time zones, on the opposite ends of the world, those letters turned into a beautiful way to communicate – to be more open, in some ways, than ever before.”
Pitt and Jolie had also established the Jolie-Pitt Foundation back in 2006. A charitable organization created to aid humanitarian causes around the world, the fund had pulled in over $41.1 million between 2006 and 2016, with more than $28 million coming from photos of the couple (and their newborn children) that they had agreed to share in return for donating money to the Foundation. some of the charities the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated to over the years were Doctors Without Borders, Global Action for Children, the Daniel Pearl Foundation, as well as multiple United Nations refugee agencies.
Dissolution and Oscar Glory
After a busy three years, Pitt had begun to slow down a bit professionally. He appeared in only a few feature films over the next few years. One of them was By the Sea (2015), written and directed by Jolie and filmed during the couple’s Honeymoon in Malta. Another release that Pitt appeared in was Allied (2016) co-starring Marion Cotillard. It was during this production that rumors began to swirl about their marriage being in trouble and an on-set affair between Pitt and Cotillard developing. All parties, to this day, have vehemently denied this.
It’s believed that Jolie had hired a private investigator to spy on Pitt after she had suspected him of being unfaithful. The PI found out that Pitt was indeed ‘getting cozy’ with Cotillard. This eventually led to a September 2016 incident in which the LA Department of Children and Family Services investigated Pitt for child abuse following an incident on a private plane. Pitt was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. That same month, Jolie filed for divorce. The custody battle over their six kids has been going on ever since. In April 2019 Pitt and Jolie were declared legally single.
Between 2016 and 2019, Pitt was focused on producing more than acting, starring in only a couple of films. One of those films was Tarantino’s long-awaited ninth feature. QT had specifically written the part of stuntman Cliff Booth for Pitt. Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood (2019) was loaded with A-list stars along with veteran character actors. Acting alongside Leonardo Di Caprio, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, and so many others, Pitt elevated his game and was rewarded with another Oscar nomination. This time he won, for Best Supporting Actor. After more than thirty years, Pitt had finally received formal recognition from his peers.
Conclusion
Thirty-five years into his career, Brad Pitt has continued to reinvent himself both onscreen and off, while remaining a classic Hollywood leading man. Still a deeply grounded ‘hillbilly’ from the Ozarks, Pitt has given up drinking and smoking and continues to work at learning from his mistakes while remaining steadfast in an industry filled with big egos and narcissistic personalities. The actor continues to put out quality films such as the deep space epic, Ad Astra (2019) and the lavish period piece musical (but not a musical), Babylon (2012), directed by Damien Chazelle. Much like his contemporary and friend George Clooney, Brad Pitt is one of the last old-fashioned movie stars. He also shows, at sixty, no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
