Brad Pitt - GQ Italy October 2007

Brad Pitt, Accepting the Price of Fame
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer

Brad Pitt, Accepting the Price of Fame

October 5, 2007

Almost every story written about Brad Pitt and his new movie, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” has drawn parallels between the actor and the outlaw. Both idealized, hunted men, known the world over and not really known at all.

But there are shades of Pitt in the assassin as well as the outlaw. Pitt has said in the past that he sought fame, in part, because he expected it to salve some internal longing.

He speaks the same way now of “the coward,” Robert Ford, a man who views “celebrity as an attainment of some kind of self-worth.”

Of course, it doesn’t work out that way — for Pitt or Ford.

Pitt never could have wished for the kind of crazed celebrity he grapples with today, one that puts thousand-dollar bounties on pictures of his children and that gives him a sentry-like awareness of lurking paparazzi.

What is perhaps most surprising is how accepting Pitt seems of the insanity of his celebrity. “You know, when I first started, it was such a cacophony of grabbing and want. And I found it very discombobulating. And that was on a much smaller scale,” Pitt says on the phone from New York during a lunch break on the set of the new Coen brothers movie, “Burn After Reading.” “But now — and I’m sure it has something to do with having kids — none of it concerns me or fazes me.

“Now it’s like, ‘What’s the worst thing?’ The worst thing is that they get in the kids’ faces and they jump that line,” says Pitt, who, with partner Angelina Jolie, is a parent to four young children. “So, if it’s not that, then it’s just ‘Okay,’ and I can go on about my business.”

And he does understand the comparisons between himself and Jesse James, or what Pitt calls the “easy angle.” They grew up in roughly the same area of Missouri. They came from relatively unremarkable backgrounds and grew up to strike the strange nerve of public fascination.

“I was a bit dumbfounded to see that tabloid journalism was alive and well at that time,” Pitt says.

He also says he never really considered those similarities while making the movie. The 43-year-old was drawn by the chance to tell the oft-told story of the infamous robber in a different way. The movie is more Greek tragedy than classic western, Pitt says.

“I mean, I shoot my gun what — once? Twice?”

The tale picks up as James is winding down a life of crime. Much of the bandit’s gang has been snuffed out, and paranoia is increasingly taking hold when two brothers, including Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), worm into his small circle of loyalists.

Or seeming loyalists: As the title suggests, Robert Ford, simultaneously a sycophant and traitor, killed James with a gun his outlaw hero had just given him. Some historians suggest James had gotten careless; others say he knew what was coming and orchestrated his own death.

The actor has his own theory: James “was looking to see if there was anyone he could trust and if that would not be the case . . . then nothing was gonna change. And he couldn’t live that way,” he says.

Trust and deceit will also be central to “State of Play,” a remake of a BBC drama that will bring Pitt, who plays an investigative reporter, to Washington for five weeks early next year.

Turns out Pitt is a bit of a journalism junkie who has given quite a bit of thought to the state of the industry — no doubt because of his time spent under its microscope.

“I believe in it so much . . . as we see more and more the complexities of situations, that it’s not just ‘Star Wars’ — good against bad. I see the importance of it more than ever,” he says. His fear is that, especially on the Web, news organizations are placing more emphasis on stories of popular interest than on global importance.

“You’re going to have people and their whims dictating what the lead stories are going to be,” Pitt adds. “Or what the stories are going to be at all.”

Or — he seems to imply — how many of them will be about him

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/04/AR2007100400885_2.html?sid=ST2007100401014

#121- an eloquent response, but isn’t that the lovely draw to art and self expression.
one can hypothesize as complex a conclusion or as simplistic and neither one may explain the most recent choice of this self proclaimed artist…
Some will say it is a lame attempt at being profound, and others like yourself give it insight that may seem plausible BUT does appear a bit complex for what could be just a superficial symbol for the movie he is recently promoting the one involving violence and assasinations…
who knows.
As far as walking and talking, I think that the largest issue with the majority of the posts about these two, is all the judement passing and name calling on both ends and the inane banter about a situation that has long passed (ie…past relationships).
i digress,
There are millions, billions of individuals out there helping others and making this world a better place, whether it is as simple as filling the pothole in the street, or helping our children cross the street, or saving lives in darfur… no one is on a pedestal, BP and AJ are beyond privileged to do what they do, to have the opportunities they have afforded to them, to have any door they want open to them simply because they are celebrity? We applaud them because the environment from which they were created is self indulged and self-absorbed and perhaps they are a little less so. I am not friend nor foe, just a realist… and at times there appears to be some of that lacking on these threads…
So as much as i wonder, what is the big deal with celebrity and why do i care, (and please, humans, refrain from attacks, i ramble aloud) I vote my utmost respect and admiration for those that fight the fight, walk the walk, talk the talk everyday of their lives, without privilege, without public awareness and recognition, every second of their existence… and still have the ability to keep rational thought, kind words and a smile in arms reach

154 pitt slop

why are you here?

It’s a public blog. I give JJ hits. Not that it’s your business.

OK.

time for a name change pitt stop

YOURS TOO. YOURE HERE, IN DISGUISE..HAHAHA

Hot, hot, hot, Brad Pitt is too hot for words.

162 pitt slop : 10/04/2007 at 11:11 pm
WHAT you wish on me, will come back to you loons…

is’nt that what you loons always say when someone says anything bout the jps?

lmao you read every thread and hang on every word jp fans say and look at every picture.

Pistols are part of the American folklore.

i love Brad so much, i don’t care if he gets wrinkles, eyebugs and what not, heck, we all do as we grow older y’all

169 Rotflmao : 10/04/2007 at 11:19 pm
I think i need to create an account on this jjb site and post some of these brad pix. maybe that will stop the jolie vs aniston ****?

he is seriously not worth arguing over.
——-
go ahead to do it, you will be ignored. have fun

Hello fellow BMPZS fans :)

Just in too say a quick hello and of course Drool at Brad pics and stare at how georgeous Angie always looks…..sigh!!!!
My cough is better but still feeling a bit off.

Anyways , I do hope Lainey’s is correct that the Jolie Pitts are going to take some time for vacay. I feel tired just watching their hectic lives.
I think Lainey is okay , she makes me laugh with her crazystupid comments and after all most of the time we all read entertaiment blogs for the entertainment value :) not for accurate reporting though it be nice if we could get both like right here at JJ( that why we love you JJ). I don’t like her idolworship Palthrow but guess she is entitled that at her blog.

Yeah I could see the money factor coloring Laineys or other people’s perception and write-up but to be fair my quarter part of chinese @ss also get a little excited at the smell of new crisps notes from the bank and I could feel my eyes wanting to roll back with pleasure with the excitment at the though of all the money rolling in by bank account…chaching!!!

N,ways just drop by to hello to you guys and take care ya’all!!

Don’t drink and drive. Peace.

I think i need to create an account on this jjb site and post some of these brad pix. maybe that will stop the jolie vs aniston ****?

he is seriously not worth arguing over.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DO IT! he’s a dumbass who doesn’t deserve to get away with everything, angelina and jen get bashed and trashed..but him? nothing.

DO IT