Pitt at Sydney's red carpet for World War Z premiere in 2013
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| Born | William Bradley Pitt December 18, 1963 Shawnee, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor, film producer |
| Years active | 1987–present |
| Religion | None |
| Spouse(s) | Jennifer Aniston (m. 2000–05) |
| Partner(s) | Angelina Jolie (2005–present; engaged) |
| Children | 6 |
Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the road movie Thelma & Louise (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with A River Runs Through It (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1994), and Legends of the Fall (1994). In 1995, he gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys, the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Four years later, Pitt starred in the cult hit Fight Club. He then starred in the major international hit Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been Troy (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), and World War Z (2013). Pitt received his second and third Academy Award nominations for his leading performances in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). Pitt owns a production company, Plan B Entertainment, whose productions include The Departed (2006) and 12 Years a Slave (2013), both of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Moneyball, which garnered a Best Picture nomination.
Following a high-profile relationship with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Pitt was married to actress Jennifer Aniston for five years. Pitt lives with actress Angelina Jolie in a relationship that has attracted wide publicity.[3] He and Jolie have six children—Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Since beginning his relationship with Jolie, he has become increasingly involved in social issues both in the United States and internationally.
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This article is part of a series on Brad Pitt |
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Contents
Early life
William Bradley Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma to Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a school counsellor, and William Alvin Pitt, who ran a trucking company.[4][5] The family soon moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he lived together with his younger siblings, Doug (born 1966) and Julie Neal (born 1969).[6] Born into a conservative household,[7] he was raised as Southern Baptist,[8] but has since stated that he does not "have a great relationship with religion" and that he "oscillate[s] between agnosticism and atheism."[9][10] Pitt has described Springfield as "Mark Twain country, Jesse James country", having grown up with "a lot of hills, a lot of lakes".[11]Pitt attended Kickapoo High School, where he was a member of the golf, swimming and tennis teams.[12][13] He participated in the school's Key and Forensics clubs, in school debates, and in musicals.[14] Following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism with a focus on advertising.[14] As graduation approached, Pitt did not feel ready to settle down. He loved films—"a portal into different worlds for me"—and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided to go to where they were made.[8] Two weeks before earning his degree, Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles, where he took acting lessons and worked odd jobs.[8]
Career
Early work
While struggling to establish himself in Los Angeles, Pitt took lessons from acting coach Roy London.[14][15] Pitt's acting career began in 1987, with uncredited parts in the films No Way Out, No Man's Land and Less Than Zero.[14][16] His television debut came in May 1987 with a two-episode role on the NBC soap opera Another World.[17] In November of the same year Pitt had a guest appearance on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains.[18] He appeared in four episodes of the CBS primetime series Dallas between December 1987 and February 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Charlie Wade (played by Shalane McCall).[19] Later in 1988, Pitt made a guest appearance on the Fox police drama 21 Jump Street.[20]In the same year, the Yugoslavian–U.S. co-production The Dark Side of the Sun (1988) gave Pitt his first leading film role, as a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The film was shelved at the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, and was not released until 1997.[14] Pitt made two motion picture appearances in 1989: the first in a supporting role in the comedy Happy Together; the second a featured role in the horror film Cutting Class, the first of Pitt's films to reach theaters.[18] He made guest appearances on television series Head of the Class, Freddy's Nightmares, Thirtysomething, and (for a second time) Growing Pains.[21]
Pitt was cast as Billy Canton, a drug addict who takes advantage of a young runaway (played by Juliette Lewis) in the 1990 NBC television movie Too Young to Die?, the story of an abused teenager sentenced to death for a murder.[22] Ken Tucker, television reviewer for Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Pitt is a magnificent slimeball as her hoody boyfriend; looking and sounding like a malevolent John Cougar Mellencamp, he's really scary."[22] The same year, Pitt co-starred in six episodes of the short-lived Fox drama Glory Days and took a supporting role in the HBO television movie The Image.[23] His next appearance came in the 1991 film Across the Tracks; Pitt portrayed Joe Maloney, a high school runner with a criminal brother, played by Ricky Schroder.[24]
After years of supporting roles in movies and frequent television guest appearances, Pitt attracted wider recognition in his supporting role in the 1991 road film Thelma & Louise.[23] He played J.D., a small-time criminal who befriends Thelma (Geena Davis). His love scene with Davis has been cited as the event that defined Pitt as a sex symbol.[18][25] After Thelma & Louise, Pitt starred in the 1991 film Johnny Suede, a low-budget picture about an aspiring rock star,[26] and the 1992 film Cool World,[18] although neither furthered his career, having poor reviews and box office performance.[27][28]
Pitt took the role of Paul Maclean in the 1992 biographical film A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford.[29] His portrayal of the character was described by People's Janet Mock as a career-making performance,[30] proving that Pitt could be more than a "cowboy-hatted hunk."[31] He has admitted to feeling under pressure when making the film[6] and thought it one of his "weakest performances ... It's so weird that it ended up being the one that I got the most attention for."[6] Pitt believed that he benefited from working with such a talented cast and crew. He compared working with Redford to playing tennis with a superior player, saying "when you play with somebody better than you, your game gets better."[30][31]
In 1993, Pitt reunited with Juliette Lewis for the road film Kalifornia. He played Early Grayce, a serial killer and the boyfriend of Lewis's character in a performance described by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone as "outstanding, all boyish charm and then a snort that exudes pure menace."[32] Pitt also garnered attention for a brief appearance in the cult hit True Romance as a stoner named Floyd, providing much needed comic relief to the action film.[33] He capped the year by winning a ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow.[34]
Critical success
1994 marked a significant turning point in Pitt's career. Starring as the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the feature film Interview with the Vampire, based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name,[35] he was part of an ensemble cast that included Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas.[35] Despite his winning two MTV Movie Awards at the 1995 ceremony,[36] his performance was poorly received. According to the Dallas Observer, "Brad Pitt ... is a large part of the problem [in the film]. When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side ... he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."[37]
In 1995, Pitt starred alongside Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow in the crime thriller Seven, playing a detective on the trail of a serial killer.[44] Pitt called it a great movie and declared the part would expand his acting horizons.[45] He expressed his intent to move on from "this 'pretty boy' thing ... and play someone with flaws."[46] His performance was critically well received, with Variety saying that it was screen acting at its best, further remarking on Pitt's ability to turn in a "determined, energetic, creditable job" as the detective.[47] Seven earned $327 million at the international box office.[27]
Following the success of Seven, Pitt took a supporting role as Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's 1995 science-fiction film 12 Monkeys. The movie received predominantly positive reviews, with Pitt praised in particular. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called Twelve Monkeys "fierce and disturbing" and remarked on Pitt's "startlingly frenzied performance", concluding that he "electrifies Jeffrey with a weird magnetism that becomes important later in the film."[48] He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film[40] and received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[49]
The following year he had a role in the legal drama Sleepers (1996), based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel of the same name.[50] The film received mixed reviews.[51] In the 1997 movie The Devil's Own Pitt starred, opposite Harrison Ford, as the Irish Republican Army terrorist Rory Devany,[52] a role for which he was required to learn an Irish accent.[53] Critical opinion was divided on his accent; "Pitt finds the right tone of moral ambiguity, but at times his Irish brogue is too convincing – it's hard to understand what he's saying", wrote the San Francisco Chronicle.[54] The Charleston Gazette opined that it had favored Pitt's accent over the movie.[55] The Devil's Own grossed $140 million worldwide,[27] but was a critical failure. Later that year he led as Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean-Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet.[56] Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded significant mountain climbing and trekking practice, including rock climbing in California and the European Alps with his co-star David Thewlis.[57] The film received mostly negative reviews, and was generally considered a disappointment.[58]
Pitt had the lead role in 1998's Meet Joe Black. He portrayed a personification of death inhabiting the body of a young man to learn what it is like to be human.[59] The film received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, Pitt was unable to "make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity."[60] Roger Ebert stated "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation."[61]
From 1999 to 2003
In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden in Fight Club,[62][63] a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher.[64] Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling.[65] To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his front teeth which were restored when filming ended.[66] While promoting Fight Club, Pitt said that the film explored not taking one's aggressions out on someone else but to "have an experience, take a punch more and see how you come out on the other end."[67] Fight Club premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival.[68] Despite divided critical opinion on the film as a whole,[69][70] Pitt's performance was widely praised. Paul Clinton of CNN noted the risky yet successful nature of the film,[71] while Variety remarked upon Pitt's ability to be "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than ... his breakthrough role in Thelma and Louise".[72] In spite of a worse-than-expected box office performance, Fight Club became a cult classic after its DVD release in 2000.[73]
The following year Pitt starred opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy The Mexican,[78] a film that garnered a range of reviews[79] but enjoyed box office success.[27] Pitt's next role, in 2001's $143 million-grossing Cold War thriller Spy Game,[27] was as Tom Bishop, an operative of the CIA's Special Activities Division, mentored by Robert Redford's character.[80] Mark Holcomb of Salon.com enjoyed the film, although he noted that neither Pitt nor Redford provided "much of an emotional connection for the audience".[81] On November 22, 2001, Pitt made a guest appearance in the eighth season of the television series Friends, playing a man with a grudge against Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, to whom Pitt was married at the time.[82] For this performance he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.[83] In December 2001, Pitt had the role of Rusty Ryan in the heist film Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack original. He joined an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy García, and Julia Roberts.[84] Well received by critics, Ocean's Eleven was highly successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide.[27]
Pitt appeared in two episodes of MTV's reality series Jackass in February 2002, first running through the streets of Los Angeles with several cast members in gorilla suits,[85] and participating in his own staged abduction in another episode.[86] In the same year, Pitt had a cameo role in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.[87] He took on his first voice-acting roles in 2003, speaking as the titular character of the DreamWorks animated film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas[88] and playing Boomhauer's brother, Patch, in an episode of the animated television series King of the Hill.[89]
2004–present
Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in Troy, and making a second appearance as Rusty Ryan, in the sequel Ocean's Twelve. He spent six months sword training before the filming of Troy, based on the Iliad.[90] An on-set injury to his Achilles tendon delayed production on the picture for several weeks.[91] Stephen Hunter of The Washington Times stated that Pitt excelled at such a demanding role.[92] Troy was the first film produced by Plan B Entertainment, a film production company he had founded two years earlier with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures.[93] Ocean's Twelve earned $362 million worldwide,[27] and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described by CNN's Paul Clinton as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford."[94]In 2005, Pitt starred in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife Jane Smith. The Star Tribune noted that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry."[95] Mr. & Mrs. Smith earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005.[96]
Reprising his role as Rusty Ryan in a third picture, Pitt starred in 2007's Ocean's Thirteen.[103] While less lucrative than the first two films, this sequel earned $311 million at the international box office.[27] Pitt's next film role was as American outlaw Jesse James in the 2007 Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, adapted from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name.[104] Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival,[105] with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of Film Journal International,[106] and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival.[107] He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival.[108]
Pitt's next leading role came in 2009 with the Quentin Tarantino-directed war film Inglourious Basterds, which premered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.[114] Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France.[115] The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide,[27] and garnered generally favorable reviews.[116] The film received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations and seven MTV Movie Award nominations, including Best Male Performance for Pitt.[117][118] He next voiced the superhero character Metro Man in the 2010 animated feature Megamind.[119]
Pitt appeared in Terrence Malick's drama The Tree of Life, co-starring Sean Penn, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[120] In a performance that attracted strong praise, he portrayed the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the drama Moneyball, which is based on the 2003 book of the same name written by Michael Lewis.[121] Moneyball received six Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Pitt.[122]
His next role was as mob hitman Jackie Cogan in Andrew Dominik's 2012 Killing Them Softly, based on the novel Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins.[123] In 2013, Pitt starred in World War Z, a thriller about a zombie apocalypse, based on Max Brooks' novel of the same name. Pitt also produced the film.[124] World War Z grossed over $539 million at the box office worldwide,[27] becoming Pitt's most commercially successful picture.[125] Next in 2013, he produced, and played a small role in, 12 Years a Slave, a historical drama based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup.[126] The film received critical acclaim[127] and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning three, including Best Picture.[128] Also in 2013, Pitt had a supporting role in Ridley Scott's The Counselor.[129]
Plan B productions landed its first television series on the 2013–2014 schedule, as their joint venture with ABC Studios, the sci-fi/fantasy drama Resurrection, was picked up by ABC.[130] Pitt serve as the one of the executive producers on the program.
Humanitarian and political causes
Pitt supports the ONE Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world.[135][136] He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current global health issues.[137] The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean.[138] In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region.[139] Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention on stopping "mass atrocities".[140]
Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture[141] and has narrated Design e2, a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design.[142] He founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2006, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.[143][144] The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services.[145][146] Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations.[147] The first six homes were completed in October 2008,[148] and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated.[149][150] Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of green housing as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.[151]
In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world.[152] The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders,[153] followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl.[154] According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006[155] and $3.4 million in 2007.[156] In June 2009 the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants.[157] In January 2010 the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.[158][159]
Pitt is a supporter of same-sex marriage.[160] In an October 2006 interview with Esquire, Pitt said that he would marry Jolie when everyone in America is legally able to marry.[161] In September 2008, he donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage.[162] In March 2012, Pitt was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, '8' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as Judge Vaughn Walker.[163]
In September 2012, Pitt reaffirmed his support of President Barack Obama, saying, "I am an Obama supporter and I'm backing his US election campaign."[164]
In the media
Starting in 2005, Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After confirming that Jolie was pregnant in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding the couple reached what Reuters, in a story titled "The Brangelina fever," called "the point of insanity"..To avoid media attention, the couple flew to Namibia for the birth of their daughter Shiloh, "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ."[171] Similarly, intense media interest greeted the announcement two years later of Jolie's second pregnancy; for the two weeks Jolie spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.
In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets, Pitt, together with Jolie, was found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and products worldwide.[173] Pitt has appeared in several television commercials. For the U.S. market, he starred in a Heineken commercial aired during the 2005 Super Bowl; it was directed by David Fincher, who had directed Pitt in Seven, Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Other commercial appearances came in television spots including SoftBank and Edwin Jeans.
Personal life
Relationships
Pitt met Friends actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. For years their marriage was considered a rare Hollywood success;[177] however, in January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced they had decided to separate. Two months later Aniston filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.[178] Pitt and Aniston's divorce was finalized by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 2, 2005.[178] Despite media reports that Pitt and Aniston had an acrimonious relationship, Pitt said in a February 2009 interview that he and Aniston "check in with each other", adding that they were both big parts of each other's lives.[179]
During Pitt's divorce proceedings, his involvement with his Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie attracted media attention. While Pitt denied claims of adultery, he admitted that he "fell in love" with Jolie on the set.[180] In April 2005, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazzi photographs emerged showing Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya; the press interpreted the pictures as evidence of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie. During 2005, the two were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina".[181] On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child, thereby publicly acknowledging their relationship for the first time. Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April 2012 after seven years together.[182]
Children
In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she adopted her second child, six-month-old Zahara Marley.[183] On January 19, 2006, a California judge granted Jolie's request to change the children's surnames from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt".[184] The adoptions were finalized soon after.[185]Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh Nouvel in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would have a Namibian passport.[186] The couple sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images; the North American rights were purchased by People for over $4.1 million, while Hello! obtained the British rights for approximately $3.5 million. The proceeds from the sale were donated to charities serving African children.[187] Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it marked the first time an infant was recreated in wax by Madame Tussauds.[188]
On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted three-year-old Pax Thien from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.[189] Pitt adopted Pax in the United States on February 21, 2008.[190]
At the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins.[191] She gave birth to son Knox Léon and daughter Vivienne Marcheline on July 12, 2008 in Nice, France.[192][better source needed] The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken.[193][194] The couple donated the proceeds to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.[193][195]
Filmography
Main article: Brad Pitt filmography
Awards and nominations
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Brad Pitt
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