Brad Pitt presents the curious paradox of an actor overshadowed by stardom.
If there is one facet of Brad Pitt that could be considered somewhat obscure, it may be — oddly enough — his acting career. For much of his two decades in the spotlight, since his breakthrough as a ripped, sweet-talking grifter in Thelma and Louise (1991) and even more so since Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), a movie that spawned a tabloid cottage industry, Pitt has been a star first and an actor second. His every move — on film sets, red carpets and humanitarian missions, often with a hard-to-miss entourage that includes his partner, Angelina Jolie, and their six children — provides endless fodder for the celebrity media. But the Brad Pitt on screen remains surprisingly elusive.
The central contradiction can be summed up thus: Pitt is a superstar who also happens to be something of a wild card. He has steered clear of action franchises and romantic comedies, the typical cornerstones of a major 21st-century screen career. Although he has not shied from big roles — they don’t come much bigger than Achilles (Troy) or Death (Meet Joe Black) — he has often sought the cover and camaraderie of ensembles, as in the Ocean’s movies and Inglourious Basterds (which are among his highest-grossing hits).
People seldom talk about his range, but he’s equally capable of flamboyance (12 Monkeys) and restraint (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). And while acting, for stars of a certain magnitude, is often a matter of aura, of simply being themselves, Pitt has shown a sly understanding of the uses of charisma: some of his most intriguing films (Fight Club, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) are self-reflexive comments on his magnetism.
At 48 Pitt has been nominated for an Academy Award twice (as many times as he has been anointed People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive). On the heels of a standout year by any measure, that tally could now double. He’s poised to earn a best actor nod for his coolly commanding turn in Moneyball as Billy Beane, the iconoclastic general manager of the Oakland A’s. He’s a longer shot in the supporting category, for which his role in The Tree of Life is eligible, but his layered performance in that film, as an authoritarian 1950s Texas father, is perhaps an even greater feat.
Fatherhood is what links Pitt’s roles in Moneyball and The Tree of Life — he also played a father in Babel (2006), another acclaimed performance — which suggests that advancing age, at least for certain actors, can be a boon.
Pitt has done his most indelible work in concentrated bursts, often on the edges of movies. See the jabbering asylum inmate in 12 Monkeys (his first Oscar-nominated role), the stoned couch potato in True Romance, the unintelligible Irish gypsy in Snatch, the clueless personal trainer in Burn After Reading. “I think it’s fair to say that mostly he’s excelled at character work,” Bennett Miller, the director of Moneyball, says by telephone. “He’s capable of the wildest shifts.”
Billy Beane, however, is an unambiguous leading-man role, and Moneyball is a passion project for Pitt, one he stood by through an arduous development process that included a very public collapse when Sony pulled the plug on a version that was to be directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Pitt says he has grown more comfortable with the responsibility of anchoring a movie. “I wasn’t ready before,” he says. “I just understand better how to fill it out. I’ve got more notes to play with.”
Dede Gardner, Pitt’s partner at Plan B, describes the company as a “safe haven” for filmmakers with unconventional ideas. She adds that Pitt has always been firm that “it not be a vanity deal”. All the same, it can create win-win situations: he helps interesting films get made and finds interesting roles for himself. Already in the can are Cogan’s Trade, a talky crime drama by Andrew Dominik, the director of Jesse James, and Marc Forster’s zombie movie World War Z. There is also a film by Steve McQueen (Shame), with Pitt in a small role alongside Michael Fassbender.
The driven, multitasking Hollywood player of today is a far cry from the overwhelmed newcomer of 20 years ago. “I hid out a lot,” Pitt says. But a youthful fear of commercialism gave way to a realisation that, as he bluntly put it, “artists can have brands and sell things.”
“I was uncomfortable with the focus,” he says. “But there are a lot of nice things that can be done with it, and I accept it. It’s part of our business.”
The New York Times
