Hollywood stars are often placed on distant, untouchable, and perfect pedestals. But reality, which stubbornly tries to surface, shows that not everything is so simple. Brad Pitt is one of those almost perfect actors who are usually judged by their cover but hide much more behind them, a complex and often dark fold. The actor born in Oklahoma 62 years ago has now admitted in an interview that the last decade of his life has been, to say the least, complex, that he has struggled with an alcohol addiction he has relapsed into, and that his divorce from actress Angelina Jolie, with whom he had six children, made him consider suicide.
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Pitt has talked about all this in a long interview granted to Esquire magazine, specifically its North American edition (although also available in Spanish). The conversation, which took place in his own home in Los Angeles — one that, he says, he bought in the fall and in which he has barely spent three separate weeks since then — is accompanied by a long photo session where the actor and producer showcases his style and classic Hollywood charisma. But the interview is much more, and in it, Pitt allows glimpses of some of the difficulties he has experienced in recent years. The actor from Interview with the Vampire and Seven talks about issues such as cancer and Alzheimer’s (his mother passed away last year), but also about his personal problems and how he is an extremely emotional person who tends to “feel everything.”
“I never had suicidal thoughts of any kind, it wasn’t my way of feeling,” he explains. “In fact, if I had any affliction, it would probably be being a congenital optimist. Which has helped me many times, and also led me, because of that optimism, to throw myself headfirst, like a fool, head-on into a truck. Or, as my always funny friend [film director] David Fincher would say: yes, you see the glass half full, but half full of urine,” he explains, in a light tone that helps him talk about important matters. “In any case, I never had suicidal tendencies except for a brief period. There was a time in my life when the pain was so oppressive that, although I wasn’t going to act on it, I could feel it, I could feel the cold steel of the bullet in my head, and I felt it as a relief. And I thought: ah, okay, now I understand… I understand suicide, in the sense that it’s just relief. It’s just about seeking relief from pain. But I also believe we have incredible survival instincts. And in my case, they kicked in immediately, but”…
There the actor pauses, and tells the interviewer: “Look, yes, this shit wasn’t easy.” And continues: “And you’re talking to a guy who hit the lottery.” The journalist, Ryan D’Agostino, replies: “The kids’ stuff?” And he answers: “Family stuff,” and nods. “Family stuff. Let’s leave it at that.” With “family stuff” one could understand the long divorce process or that since the separation, he barely has contact with his children, who have dropped his last name.
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During the conversation, D’Agostino says, both drink sparkling water, but the writer asks Pitt at one point in the interview, at his home, if he usually offers a glass of wine to his guests, since he has bottles at home. “I was sober for seven years. And then I fell off the wagon,” the actor admits, with a chuckle. “In a more restricted way,” he explains about his alcohol consumption. “A couple of times I overdid it, I trusted myself too much, I was like ‘Yes, no, it’s not good for me. Not in large amounts.” So, can he now have a glass of wine? He stops to reflect. “Yes, well, I can have a few, but not many. I have to be professional about that.” He admits he is a man who likes to make the most of mornings, watch how the fog dissipates over the hills of Los Angeles, and if he drinks alcohol, that prevents him from doing so.
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The conversation takes place in June, and while it happens, the actor and journalist watch a World Cup soccer match together, so they talk about topics like that, about Neymar — whom, he says, he would like to give a lesson to learn how to fall — or about goals, but also that despite years of galas and awards, he doesn’t know how to tie a bow tie, about artificial intelligence (“it’s going to be a very interesting experiment,” he assures) or about the difficulties of acting. Also about colleagues in the profession, for example, his adoration for Kate Winslet’s work, whom he surprisingly does not know. “She gives herself without reservations, man. I love her commitment. I have tried to bring that level of commitment, certainly in The Riders, the latest thing I’ve done, after seeing Kate,” he explains, about his upcoming project, directed by Edward Berger, which will premiere in a few months, along with another film, The Heart of the Beast, a story about a retired soldier and his dog lost in Alaska that will hit screens in the coming weeks. He also has a project written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by David Fincher in sight, in which he reprises his character Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, the role that earned him the Oscar.
The death of his mother has deeply affected him, he explains. “I think grief is probably the emotion that most equalizes us all,” Pitt reflects with his interlocutor, who confesses that five years ago he lost his brother. “And even that falls short. Loss is, without a doubt, the deepest thing a human being can endure. And the loneliness that can come afterward is the greatest torture.” Later in the conversation, he also states: “Grief, if you survive it, leaves a huge hole, but it also leaves a deep beauty. It’s a painful beauty, but it’s beauty.” More than getting out of it, he recounts, it’s about “going through it and trying, until you’re exhausted”: “I don’t want to overlook that place where you bang your head against the wall. But one day I just woke up and everything seemed a little sunnier and the air seemed a little sweeter. I just need microdoses of that.”
“Maybe we’re approaching it the wrong way. Maybe we have to start by giving up all control, that need, that belief about how things should be, what should have happened or how they’re supposed to be, and then stop trying to control it, trying to shape it with hammers and pliers, something impossible. Maybe that’s really the way to wake up and discover that one day the sun shines a little more and the air is a little sweeter. And that, in itself, is acceptance, I would say,” he concludes his reflection, who in the entire interview only mentions his current partner, Inés de Ramón, once — to say that he is learning from her how to pack and unpack suitcases —.
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The actor is not prone to giving long interviews like this, but the conversation with Esquire comes at a time when Pitt’s name — in fact, his last name — keeps being in the spotlight. The youngest of his six children, twins Knox and Vivienne, have already reached adulthood and have been the last of all of them to show interest in dropping their father’s last name. Although discreetly, all have been distancing themselves, physically and even nominally, from their father, with whom they barely maintain a relationship. In the American media and celebrity narrative, Angelina Jolie is usually portrayed as the great mother who raised her six children, while Pitt’s figure is relegated to years of alcohol, fights, and bad behavior. An interview like this gives the Oscar winner the chance to change how his figure is seen, as an actor and as a father, and to make his career and public image a little easier ahead of the imminent awards season.
