According to an excerpt from the Golden Globe, Brad Pitt said, “A woman in acting class needed a partner to do a scene for an agent; I did the scene and ended up with the agent." Thus, his acting career began.
Brad Pitt gave in to his love of movies and left for Los Angeles in the late 1980s, just two credits short of earning a journalism degree from the University of Missouri. While attending acting classes in Los Angeles, Pitt worked as a limo driver, a furniture mover, and an El Pollo Loco mascot in his early days in Hollywood. Within seven months, he discovered a representative and started booking acting gigs, such as "Growing Pains" in 1987 and "Another World," a soap opera, in 1987 and 1989.
Pitt's big break came in the 1991 film "Thelma and Louise" in a small but memorable role as a charming hitchhiker and one-night stand to Geena Davis' character. After appearing in a few more movies after "Thelma and Louise," Pitt was cast in Robert Redford's 1992 movie "A River Runs Through It" as a fly-fisher who gambles. By 1992, Brad Pitt had relationships with Juliette Lewis, Robin Givens, and Jill Schoelen. He later starred alongside Lewis in "Kalifornia," a movie about a couple on a murderous cross-country rampage.
The coveted lead role in "Interview with the Vampire," opposite one of Hollywood's hottest actors, Tom Cruise, and a young Kirsten Dunst, would be his next significant career move in 1994. People magazine named Pitt the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1995. Pitt, who is formally a member of Hollywood's A-List, followed up "Interview" with "Legends of the Fall" from 1994 and David Fincher's suspenseful "Seven." However, it was "Twelve Monkeys," a 1995 Terry Gilliam psychological thriller, that would earn Pitt his first Oscar nomination and first Golden Globe victory.
Why did Brad Pitt decide to become an actor?
Brad Pitt, who won the Golden Globe for best actor, discusses his decision to pursue acting in this excerpt from the Golden Globe archives:
"Where I'm from is a million miles away; I call it the Ozarks, a little bit of Huckleberry Finn, with rivers and lakes, trees, and places to go get lost." "I come from a very stable Christian family." "I have a younger brother and a younger sister, both married." "Dad's into the outdoors and had a business; I'm crazy about all of them."
"When in Missouri, you see Hollywood fame, you see money, and you see all these things; they're definitely an attraction, but when you come out here, it turns into something else." "My dream was not about the fame or the money, it was about those movies I watched sitting by myself in the dark."
"Seeing films offered me a different way of looking at things." "They gave me reasons why people do the things they do; they helped me realize that I could leave Missouri if I wanted to." "I got bad college grades, and I got it into my head that it was time to go, so I left two credits short."
"Arriving in L.A., I had a million jobs, I slept the first couple of nights in my car, and I lived in six different places during the first eight months; I met people, where I could kind of crash." "The first week I started doing work as an extra, but I also delivered chickens and refrigerators." "A woman in an acting class needed a partner to do a scene for an agent." "I did the scene and ended up with the agent."
What was Brad Pitt's career-defining moment?
His "breakthrough" years are generally regarded as being from 1994 to 1998. Pitt started dating Gwyneth Paltrow, Hollywood's "It Girl," in 1995. After two years of dating, they got engaged. They called off their engagement and split up in 1997 for an unspecified reason. Brad Pitt played the terrorist Rory Devany in the 1997 movie "The Devil's Own," opposite Harrison Ford. He had to learn an Irish accent for the part.
He received mixed reviews for 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," the San Francisco Chronicle said. According to The Charleston Gazette, they liked Pitt's accent better than the movie. Despite making $140 million worldwide, The Devil's Own was a box office dud. "Seven Years in Tibet," Pitt's most ambitious film to date, was shot in Argentina in the same year.
Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were paired up on a date in 1998 thanks to their respective agents and two years later, they got married. Between 1998 and 2001, Pitt starred in a number of high-profile movies, including "Fight Club" by David Fincher, "Snatch" by Guy Ritchie, "The Mexican" with Julia Roberts, "Meet Joe Black," and "Ocean's Eleven" by Steven Soderbergh, which also starred George Clooney and Matt Damon.
How many people has Brad Pitt dated, in brief?
Pitt had romantic relationships with a number of his co-stars, including Juliette Lewis, Robin Givens, and Jill Schoelen, from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. Pitt then became engaged to Gwyneth Paltrow, his “Seven” co-star, in a highly publicized relationship that lasted from 1995 to 1997.
Pitt first met Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and on July 29, 2000, they were married in Malibu during a small ceremony. Pitt and Aniston declared their separation in January 2005 with Aniston later requesting a divorce two months later, citing irreconcilable differences. The Los Angeles Superior Court finalized Pitt and Aniston's divorce on October 2, 2005. Pitt stated in a February 2009 interview that he and Aniston "check in with each other," adding that they were both significant parts of each other's lives, despite media reports to the contrary.
Pitt's relationship with his Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie garnered media attention while his divorce was being litigated. There was no infidelity, according to Jolie and Pitt, who claimed to have fallen in love on set. One month after Aniston requested a divorce, in April 2005, a set of paparazzi pictures showing Pitt, Jolie, and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya surfaced. The images were interpreted by the media as proof of a romantic relationship between Pitt and Jolie.
The couple was referred to as "Brangelina" by the entertainment media as they appeared together more frequently throughout 2005. Jolie publicly acknowledged her relationship with Pitt for the first time on January 11, 2006, when she revealed to People that she was carrying Pitt's child. After seven years of dating, Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April 2012.
On August 14, 2014, they were formally married in Los Angeles. On August 23, 2014, they were married in a secret ceremony at Château Miraval in France. Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt on September 19, 2016, citing irreconcilable differences. The court ruled that Jolie and Pitt were legally single on April 12, 2019. Pitt started dating Ines de Ramon, a jewelry designer who is 29 years younger than him, in 2022.
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