Brad Pitt: A Versatile Protagonist

William Bradley Pitt, famously known as Brad Pitt was born in Shwanee, Oklahama on 18 December, 1963. His mother Jane Etta was a school counselor, and his father William Alvin Pitt ran a trucking company. The Pitts later shifted to Missouri during Brad’s high school years. Brad was a member of the swimming, golf and tennis teams. He also participated in the school’s Key and Forensics clubs, in musicals, and in school debates. He went to the University of Missouri to major in journalism with a focus in advertising. He was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity while he was there. 

William Bradley Pitt

Two weeks before earning his degree, Pitt made a decision that would alter the course of his life. He took a chance and left for Los Angeles, where he worked odd jobs and took acting lessons. His first recognizable role was as a good-looking guest actor on the CBS primetime series “Dallas” between December 1987 and February 1988. He continued to find steady work in whatever projects he could obtain. 

His big break came in what may appear like a modern-day Cinderalla story. After years of supporting roles in movies and frequent television guest appearances, Pitt achieved instant fame as a hitchhiker named J.D in Ridley Scott’s 1991 road movie Thelma & Louise. Subsequently, he began to cultivate his leading-man status as a working actor and earned critical acclaim for the role of Paul Mclean in the 1992 autobiographical movie A River Runs through It, directed by Robert Redford. People’s Janet Mock described Pitt’s portrayal of the character as a career-making performance. Pitt was already a subject of interest in the realm of celebrity gossip, and his terminated engagement to actress Juliette Lewis did the rounds. In 1994, he starred as the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the feature film Interview with the Vampire alongside Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderas, Kirsten Dunst, and Christian Slater. Many were introduced to him as the defiant brother Tristan Ludlow in the 1994 movie Legends of the Fall, based on a novel by the same name by Jim Harrison. Empire dubbed him one of the sexiest stars in the film history in 1995. 

Pitt took a departure from these ‘pretty boy’ roles when he starred alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Morgan Freeman in the 1997 crime thriller Seven. The film earned $327 million at the international box office. Pitt called it a great movie and his performance was critically well received. After the success of Seven, he took a supporting role in Terry Gilliam’s 1995 science-fiction thriller movie 12 Monkeys. He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the movie for his outstanding frenzied performance as a mental patient. He also earned his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. 

Pitt led as Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet, which gained mostly negative reviews. He portrayed Tyler Durden in the thriller maestro David Fincher’s 1999 movie Fight Club, a film adaption of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel of the same name. Pitt learned boxing, grappling, and taekwondo in order to prepare himself for the part. He consented to the removal of pieces of his front teeth which were restored when filming finished. In spite of divided critical opinion on the movie broadly, Pitt’s performance was widely acclaimed. Fight Club became a cult classic and a generational icon after its DVD release in 2000. 

Pitt played the role of an Irish Gypsy boxer with a barely comprehensive accent in Guy Ritchie’s 2000 gangster movie Snatch. Although several reviewers were critical of Snatch, most of them praised Pitt. Following Snatch, he was cast opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy The Mexican. The movie garnered a range of reviews but enjoyed box office success. He met Friends star Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her in Malibu on July 29, 2000. In 2001, Pitt starred in the heist movie Ocean’s Eleven, which was a remake of the 1960 starring the storied Rat Pack. The movie gained massive success at the box office earning $450 million worldwide and was well received by critics. Pitt played a cameo role in George Clooney’s directional debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind in the following year. In 2004, he spent six months sword training in order to portray Achilles in Troy, based on the Iliad. The following year, Pitt shared the screen with Angelina Jolie in Dough Liman’s action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith in which an exhausted married couple discover that each is an assassination appointed to kill the other.  The movie was one of the biggest hits of 2005 earning $478 million worldwide. Pitt’s involvement with his co-star Angelina Jolie erupted media storm during his divorce proceedings from Jennifer Aniston. 

The two were seen together several times, and the entertainment media named the couple “Brangelina”. They had their daughter Shiloh in Namibia in 2006. Jolie adopted three-year-old Pax from an orphanage in Vietnam on March 15, 2007. Pitt adopted Pax in the US in the next year. Jolie gave birth to twins, Knox and Vivienne, in 2008. The couple sold the rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne jointly to People and Hello! For $14 and donated the money to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation. 

Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu’s 2006 multi-narrative drama Babel. His performance was critically acclaimed, and he regarded taking the part as one of the best decisions of his career. He was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for the film. He reprised the role as Rusty Ryan in Ocean Thirteen, the last film of the “Ocean’s Trilogy” in 2007. He appeared in the lead role in David Fincher’s 2008 movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, reuniting to Cate Blanchett. The movie tells the story of a man who is born an octogenarian and ages in reverse. Pitt’s performance earned him a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination, both in the category for Best Actor. 

Pitt played a lead role in Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 movie Inglourious Basterds and a special presentation was held at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.  He also earned Best Actor nominations for the Academy Awards for portraying the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in drama Moneyball. In 2013, Pitt starred in thriller movie World War Z, about a zombie apocalypse. Pit himself produced the movie and it grossed over $539 million at the box office worldwide. He produced and played a small role in the historical drama 12 Years a Slave, and played a supporting role in The Counselor last year.