This guy needs no introduction. He is the
main sex symbol of a generation and an Oscar winner. All of his characters are bright,
charming and completely unforgettable.
How did Brad Pitt manage not to get
stuck in the image of a handsome lover hero and prove to everyone that
he is good in serious dramatic roles?
Why was he banned from entering China?
And why does he hate his iconic role in “Interview with the Vampire”?
Welcome to the Biographer channel. Today we will analyze details of Brad Pitt’s biography and the
history of his ascent to the Hollywood Olympus. But before, I traditionally suggest you to
subscribe and turn on notifications in order to be the first to receive interesting videos about your
favorite celebrities. Make the subscribe button white, the bell gray, and we start.
EARLY YEARS
William Bradley Pitt was born in Oklahoma on
December 18, 1963, and grew up in Missouri. His father worked in a trucking company, and
his mother was a school counselor. In addition to Brad, there were two other children in the
family: brother Douglas and sister Julie.
As members of the Baptist Church, Brad's parents
raised their children in austerity. The family went to church every Sunday, and the meal was
only after praying. Parents forced children to sing in a church choir. In an interview, the
actor admitted that his father was incredibly cruel to him. According to Pitt, he grew up in
a family where there were constant restrictions, prohibitions and misunderstandings. It was
because of his father's cruelty that he eventually stopped believing in God.
'I’ve gone through everything. Like, I cling to religion. I grew up with Christianity.
Always questioned it, but it worked at times. And then when I got on my own, I completely
left it and I called myself agnostic.
However, the strict rules in the family
did not prevent Pitt from growing up as a versatile child and trying himself
in different areas. In high school, Bradley was a member of the school's golf,
tennis and swimming teams. But his main hobby was acting on stage. He had classes
at the theater, which he still sponsors.
After graduating from high school, the young
man began to study journalism and advertising at the University of Missouri - Columbia. But two
weeks before graduation, he dropped everything and, without a degree, went to Hollywood.
There he changed his name to "Brad Pitt".
I always liked film as a teaching tool —
a way of getting exposed to ideas that had never been presented to me…It just wasn't on
the list of career options where I grew up.
Acting success did not come to him immediately.
Pitt took any job to feed himself and pay for expensive acting classes. He worked as a furniture
transporter, and at night he delivered strippers to parties in a limousine. He was even a
barker at the El Pollo Loco restaurant chain: he walked the streets dressed as a giant chicken,
inviting passers-by to visit their establishment.
It is interesting that work with strippers was not
easy in moral terms, but in some sense helped Brad in his future acting career. The fact is that one
of the girls took up Roy London's acting class. Pitt decided to go to class too,
and the knowledge that he got there, was really useful to him later.
In parallel, he went to all kinds of auditions. One day an agent noticed him and decided to take
the young talent under his wing. Thanks to him, Pitt began to earn extra money on the set.
For example, he was just standing in the doorway or portrayed a waiter in a film with
Charlie Sheen. To get noticed and receive the coveted Actors Guild card, he tried to
speak during his short appearances.
Among the first Pitt’s works is also famous
The Pringles Chips commercial, broadcast on TV in 1989. Who knew then that this tanned handsome
blond would become a cinema legend in future?
Two years later, Pitt finally started getting
cameo roles. For example, he got the role in several episodes of the TV series “Another
World”, and in everyone's favorite "Dallas".
That was followed by roles in "Growing
Pains", "Tales from the Crypt", as well as in the well-known " 21 Jump Street",
where Johnny Depp began his career.
The first major movie role of Brad Pitt
was a guy whose illness did not allow him to appear in the sun without protective
dark clothes.The film "The Dark Side of the Sun" was shot in Yugoslavia in
the late 80s. Due to the civil war, part of the film footage was lost for 10 years
and the movie was released only in 1997.
After the first bad experience, the young actor
made his way to the cinema as best he could.
He first appeared alongside Patrick
Dempsey in the comedy Happy Together, and then in the horror film “Cutting Class”
where he played the school basketball star.
For this role, Brad Pitt received his
first serious fee - 12 thousand dollars.
In the nineties, Pitt returned to television
again, to play more serious roles. The actor appears in the TV movie
"Too Young to Die?" with Juliet Lewis. His character Billy is a drug addict who takes
advantage of the defenselessness of young Amanda and makes her an accomplice in a crime.
During filming, Pitt and Lewis had a whirlwind romance, which, alas, did not stand the test of
popularity. Juliet remained a "promising actress", while Brad moved to a higher level. The handsome
man got tired of constant scenes of jealousy, and he left Lewis after three years of
marriage, having an affair with Gwyneth Paltrow. Juliet took the break too close to her
heart and even tried to commit suicide.
Meanwhile, Pitt's career continued to go
up. He appeared in 6 episodes of Glory Days, Canvas - the HBO television movie, and the
movie Across The Track. Summing up the TV roles, Pitt is filming a Levis commercial.
New Achievements
1991 became a real breakthrough for the young
actor. Then came the crime drama Ridley Scott "Thelma & Louise", in which Pitt played the
role of the conqueror of hearts Jay Dee.
In the film, Pitt has three small episodes,
including the famous sex scene with Gina Davis, which brought him fame as the sexiest
partner of modern Hollywood.
Shortly before that, Pitt starred
in the comedy “The Favor”, but its premiere took place only in 1994
due to the bankruptcy of Orion Pictures.
In the films “Johnny Suede” and “Cool World”,
released in a year, Brad played the main roles. However, the films were not well received by
critics and did not differ in originality.
But the role of a fearless reporter in the drama
“A River Runs Through It” by Robert Redford proved that he wasn’t just a handsome guy
in a cowboy hat, but a talented actor.
They say Pitt was very displeased with
the results of the first auditions. He was able to insist on being allowed to
send a video with another scene. As a result, the second version convinced the director that
the actor was really suitable for the role.
Brad didn't fight so hard for a place in the
movie for nothing. "A River Runs Through It" impressed critics and received a number
of Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
And although Brad didn't receive awards, that
film took him to a new level and drew the attention of directors to the young talent.
In 1993, Pitt starred in a cameo role in Tony Scott's “True Romance”, written by Quentin
Tarantino. His hero never gets up from a couch and constantly smokes weed. By the
way, Pitt himself suggested making his character a junkie always lying on a couch.
Well, the next project took him to the new highs.
A-list
On November 11, 1994, "Interview with the
Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles" was released. Kirsten Dunst became famous. Tom Cruise proved
that he was able to play the villain. Well, for Brad Pitt shooting in one of the most important
films in his career became a living hell. The actor later called the role a failure.
First of all, it was physically hard. Pitt hung upside down everyday to rush the blood to his
head and to bring out a vein. He also wore a heavy wig and contact lenses that hurt his eyes.
Like a real vampire, Pitt did not see the light: almost all the shooting was carried out at night,
and then in the middle of winter in foggy Albion. "Six months in the f *** ing
dark," the actor complained.
The fact that the author of the original book,
Anne Rice, was categorically dissatisfied with the casting for the main roles made things
worse. The fact is that she wrote the first version of the script herself, representing
the perfectly beautiful Frenchman Alain Delon in the image of Louis. It is understandable why
the writer was so outraged by the subsequent casting for the film: there was nothing in common
between the star of intellectual European cinema and the hopelessly earthly Brad Pitt, who
advertised fried chicken yesterday.
That, of course, demoralized Brad.
If the actor had been inspired by the story itself, all of the above suffering would
have paid off. And he did when he was preparing for the role. Pitt was familiar with the book
and read the first version of the script, which he was quite satisfied with. But when
Brad got the final script two weeks before the start of work, he realized that it
would not be at all what he expected.
Every day he felt more and more
disappointed in his role.
Thus, the screenwriters gave the
talented actor the background role, not allowing him to really open up.
Already in the midst of filming, he felt so depressed that he still tried to
leave the project. He was stopped only by a forfeit of $40 million, which he would have had
to pay the studio to break the contract. Unhappy, depressed and missing the sun, Brad was tormented
to the end, and, I must say, in the film, the lack of enthusiasm for him is noticeable.
Although the film received mixed reviews in the press, the audience loved it. However, the
scene of Kristen Dunst and Pitt kissing greatly outraged some viewers. It was then
discussed for a long time in the media, and the actors later admitted that they felt very
uncomfortable during the filming of that moment.
In any case, unlike many one-day horror
films, the movie made a real splash. The film has firmly entered the category
of cinema classics and it is now considered one of the best films about vampires. Even Anne
Rice, after watching, changed her point of view and praised the film adaptation.
Have you watched this movie? If so, be sure to write in the comments if you liked
it. I read everything and like the best ones.
In the same year, Edward Zwick's large-scale
epic "Legends of the Fall" was released, where Sir Anthony Hopkins himself was Brad's
partner. The film received numerous Academy Award nominations, including "Best Sound" and "Best
Costume Design". And Brad finally got his first Golden Globe nomination.
Serious roles
As if wanting to distance himself as
much as possible from the romantic role got in past projects, in 1995 Brad Pitt
played the mentally ill dreamer in Terry Gilliam's fantasy thriller “12 Monkeys ”.
Since work on the film began even before the release of the hits that made Pitt an actor of
the first magnitude, he was paid a rather modest 100 thousand for that role. But in the end, the
actor got something more valuable than money. Even Bruce Willis, who was already a star
at that time, agreed to the minimum fee. It was all about the opportunity to
work with an extraordinary director.
Pitt visited the psychiatric department of Temple
University for several weeks to play the mentally unstable Jeffrey Goines.The actor carefully
rehearsed all the awkward, crazy movements of his character and selected a special timbre of his
voice. In order for Pitt to be able to pronounce his lines correctly - quickly and nervously,
Terry Gilliam first sent him to a tutor. But then he figured out just to limit the
actor in smoking, and he, feeling stressed, played exactly as Gilliam wanted.
The efforts of this duo were not in vain. For his role, Pitt received a Golden Globe and his
first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
In the same 1995, the film "Seven" by
David Fincher was released. For the filming in it Brad refused a role in Apollo 13.
There were some injuries on the set. During the filming of the chase scene, he slipped, hit his
hand on the windshield and got a ruptured tendon. Pitt had to wear a cast until the end of filming,
and the production team had to urgently edit the script so that the character also got injured.
As a result, in the scenes that were supposed to take place before the chase, but were filmed
later, the actor had to hide his cast hand.
Interestingly, studio executives were not
satisfied with the ending of the film and asked Fincher to rewrite it. But Brad, who considered
her the most suitable, rebelled and threatened to leave the film if the ending was changed.
After its release, Pitt was included in the top 25 sexiest stars in the history of cinema
according to Empire magazine. He was subsequently voted "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine -
twice. Brad Pitt became the first (and so far the only) person to receive this honor twice.
But Brad did not have time to enjoy the status of an enviable bachelor, because even during
the filming of the movie "Seven" he began an affair with Gwyneth Paltrow. The actors
immediately became the audience's favorites, appeared everywhere together, and after a
year of relationships they got engaged
Later, Barry Levinson's legal drama Sleepers was
released, where Pitt played the role of a lawyer who was sexually abused as a child. His co-stars
on the set were Kevin Bacon, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.
Difficult Year
In 1997, paparazzi photographed the actor naked
while on vacation with Gwyneth Paltrow in Europe. Pitt sued the magazine and won it, but
the whole world had already seen the provocative pictures by that time. In the
same year, Brad and Gwyneth broke up.
In addition to the wounded soul, Pitt suffered
real injuries in that year. The actor spent some time in Northern Ireland preparing
for a role in the film "The Devil’s Own”. There he was attacked and beaten.
The most annoying thing is that the film was not worth those bruises at all. There were
many problems and misunderstandings on the set.
Work on the film was delayed, the
script was rewritten several times. Pitt even decided to leave the project,
considering the final version of the story incomplete and incoherent, but the producers
threatened legal action and he had to stay.
According to rumors, the situation was aggravated
by his relationship with Harrison Ford. The actors were in conflict all the time on
the set. And that despite the fact that Pitt personally suggested Ford for that role.
As a result, the film was not particularly liked by the audience and received
mixed reviews from critics.
In the same year, the film “Seven Years in
Tibet” was released. It described the story of the adventures of an Austrian climber in Tibet
during the Second World War. The film was based on the autobiographical book of the same name by the
Austrian climber and traveler Heinrich Harrer.
Brad got a very complex and controversial
character. And it's not even that the actor's accent in this film was named the third
worst accent in Hollywood history, according to Empire magazine. In the film, Heinrich Harrer
had a negative attitude towards the Nazis.
But before the premiere, there was information, that his prototype was actually a member of
the Nazi Party and served in the SS. However, Harrer later stated that it was "mistakes of
youth", but an unpleasant feeling remained.
Since the film implied a political context,
among other things, Pitt was often asked about his position on that matter.
Who cares what I think China should do about Tibet? I'm a fucking actor ...
I'm a grown man who puts on make-up
When the film was released, the Chinese government
denounced it, saying that Chinese Communist officers were shown to be excessively rude and
cruel to the people of Tibet. Because of that, Pitt, Thewlis and director Jean-Jacques Annaud
were given a lifetime ban from entering China.
Despite all this, many viewers liked the
film. And after a while, the ban was canceled and Pitt visited China in 2014 and 2016.
Following this film, Brad reappeared with Anthony Hopkins in Meet Joe Black, a remake of the 1934
film Death Takes a Holiday. The actor played Death that took over the body of a young guy.
Although the actors coped perfectly, the reviews for the film were mixed. The main
reason for the critics' dissatisfaction was the three-hour duration of the film, which slowed
down the pace of the narrative too much.
At the same time, there are no special effects in
the picture, and for some time the film was the most expensive in the history of cinema,
where special effects were not used.
A two-hour version was made to show
the film on television. But director Martin Brest ridiculed and disowned that one.
Therefore, in the credits of the short version, the director's name was changed to the famous
Hollywood pseudonym "Alan Smithee”, which is used in cinema for directors who want to disown the
project. The film received several nominations for the most famous anti-awards in the world
of cinema and show business in the nomination "Worst Film of the Year", "Worst Remake".
Despite this, the film grossed a good box office. Although, according to some film critics, it
is believed that this happened due to the fact that before the start of the picture there was
a trailer for "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace", and fans of the series bought
tickets for "Meet Joe Black" only because of an opportunity watch the trailer
for the new picture of the legendary saga.
While working on the picture, Brad Pitt and his
colleague on the set Claire Forlani had an affair, which, however, ended quickly enough.
But in 1998, the press had a new reason for gossip. Brad started a relationship with
Jennifer Aniston, whom he met on a blind date.
Pitt was captivated by a carefree, laughing
girl who seemed to have been created for him. Rumor has it he even took Greek lessons
because Aniston is of Greek descent. Two years later, they got married, and Brad
himself designed Jennifer's wedding ring.
It's funny that the actor played in the
TV series “Friends" the role of a guy who hates Rachel - the heroine of Aniston.
But for now, let's go back to 1999. The year Tyler Durden appeared.
Iconic role
Initially, the producers of "Fight Club"
considered Russell Crowe for the role of the charismatic soap merchant. But then their
choice fell on Pitt. Seeing him in action, no one regretted their decision.
Pitt did not want to act in "Fight Club" until Fincher, the director of the
picture, himself appeared on his doorstep, and over a couple of bottles of beer
persuaded him to take on this role.
Before filming began, Brad and his co-star Edward
Norton had to prepare thoroughly. They seriously took up boxing to make the fight scenes look
high-quality. And they also attended soap making lessons, how could they go without it?
At the same time, Norton and Pitt followed different diet and training regimes in order
to show the contrast between two characters. In an interview, Norton admitted that
the goal was to make his character look weaker and weaker, and Pitt's character stronger.
“Brad got bigger and stronger throughout the film, more muscular, tanned and more
handsome as I turned into Gollum.”
Unfortunately, this subtle visual metaphor
is often overlooked by viewers, because Pitt is so attractive that most actors will, in
principle, look like Gollum in his background.
In addition to training, for the sake of
filming in the movie, Pitt specially chipped his front teeth, as he felt that it would be
in keeping with the character of his hero.
Many scenes in the film do not accidentally look
too "real". The fact is that in the scene where the Narrator hit Tyler Durden in the ear for the
first time, Norton had only to simulate a strong blow... but a few minutes before the shooting
began, Fincher took Norton aside and told him to hit for real. So the grimace of pain on
Pitt's face can hardly be called fake.
And in the scene where the Narrator and Tyler
were playing golf, they were actually drunk.
It is clear that Pitt did not really want his
parents to see this picture, but they insisted on their own. After watching the chemical burn
scene, they really regretted their decision.
The movie failed miserably at the box office, not
even paying for itself. Some of the bigwigs at the film company lost their jobs as a result. Only
Brad Pitt remained in the black: his fee was $17.5 million, seven times more than Edward Norton.
Despite the failure, just a few years after the premiere, the film was recognized as one of the
most outstanding films of our time and rallied an army of ardent fans around it. It will not be
superfluous to say that "Fight Club" is the rarest case when the adaptation of the story surpassed
the literary source on all counts. Even the author himself, Chuck Palahniuk, admitted this.
It would seem that after making a film where they really hit you in the face, almost knock
out a tooth, and so on, Brad should have got tired of this genre. But the actor found out that
director Guy Ritchie was working on a new film. Pitt, being a big fan of his previous
work, especially Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), wrote to the director
and asked for the role. And Richie agreed.
The film “Snatch” became not only one of the
brightest in Pitt's career, but also turned over time into a real classic of cinema. However,
in more detail about the history of this film and other Pitt’s works you will learn in the
second part. And how soon it will be released depends only on you. As soon as this video gets
10 thousand likes, we will immediately release a second part. The terms are really simple.
And while you're waiting for a new video, we have a couple more videos for you that
are worth your attention. Click on the icon on your screen and find out a lot of facts
about these celebrities that most people don't know. Follow the link and watch.
And that's all for today. It was the Biographer channel. Like this
video and see you very soon. Bye!
