“Shawnee, December 18, 1963 – April 1, 2023.” According to Wikipedia, Brad Pitt would have died today, without specifying where. April Fools’ Day on Wikipedia, which gives the American actor who is alive and well as deceased, also because the “news” appears only in the first line of the title and only in the Italian version of the online encyclopedia.
Fifty-nine years old, a long and bright career, seven-time Oscar nominee and two-time award winner (as producer in 2014 for 12 years a slave and Best Supporting Actor in 2020 for Once upon a time in… Hollywood), Pitt recently starred in Babylon Of Damien Chazelle and is currently on set with George Clooney for the thriller Wolves Of Jon Wattstheir fifth film together.
“I’ve wanted to work with Chazelle ever since Whiplash – Pitt had told Repubblica speaking of Babylon – dazzled by its kinetic energy, freshness. I love measuring myself against young authors, embracing their courage, originality and ambition. Babylon is a choral tale of characters who aim to be part of something bigger than themselves. My Jack Conrad is the greatest star of the moment, at the peak of his success, he masters the technique, he believes in cinema as an art, he says “we must innovate, inspire”. And he is the one who lays down the law, at least at the beginning”.
‘Babylon’, Chazelle recounts Hollywood Babylon starring Brad Pitt
And speaking of his beginnings, he said: “I remember very well when I left the Ozarks, the mountains of Missouri, 2,200 miles away from Hollywood. I drove my beat-up car up to Los Angeles. There was a period of real , fucking, loneliness. I took a newspaper and told myself I could start doing some jobs, the following week I was already doing a hundred jobs. But the moment of absolute wonder was the first time I entered a film studio, with my car. I had grown up loving movies without having any access to the world of entertainment: entering a studio where cinema was made gave me a great sense of pride, knowing where I came from”.
