Brad Pitt talks about Terrence Malick and The Tree of Life
What happened when Hollywood's most photographed actor teamed up with Terrence Malick, its most reclusive and paparazzi-shy director? Brad Pitt tells all
Steve Rose
guardian.co.uk,
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That Pitt's real family were staying close by also presented complications. He and Angelina Jolie take it in turns to look after the family (at that stage four children; Jolie was pregnant with twins) while the other works, and they travel as a unit. But where Pitt and Jolie go, legions of paparazzi follow. For a recluse such as Malick, it's a different world – possibly his definition of hell. "It was terribly, terribly uncomfortable for him," Pitt admits, recalling the time a photographer ambushed them together at a local restaurant. Does he envy Malick's well-maintained privacy? "Sure I do! He gets to just make things. It took me a good decade of hiding in my house and not going outside to even, like, get my arms around this idea of celebrity, where suddenly people are looking for you to pick your nose or get a shot of you kissing some woman. It's a very discombobulating thing. But Angie and I have got it down pretty well. We have to hide behind some walls, but we're good."
On a theological level, Pitt and Malick were also in different worlds. As its title suggests, The Tree of Life is shot through with biblical, or at least spiritual, symbolism. It begins with a quote from the Book of Job and ends with what could be construed as some form of rapture or afterlife, with much musing on nature, grace and God in between. Would Pitt describe his own upbringing as religious? "Are you kidding me? I grew up in the fuckin' buckle of the Bible Belt!" He replies. "Terry and I, we have our areas where we meet and we have our respectful disagreements. He sees God in science and science in God, and I respect that. But this idea of an all-powerful, watching being that's controlling our moves and giving us a chance to say he's the greatest so we get into some eternal heaven – that just doesn't work for me, man. I got a real problem with it. I see the value of religion and what it offers to people as a cushion and I don't want to step on that. On the other hand, I've seen where I grew up how it becomes separatist, and I get quite aggravated and antagonistic. I see religion more as a truck stop on your way to figuring out who you are."
The Tree of Life is probably too unconventional to reach audiences in America's Christian heartland, but it would be interesting to see what they would make of it. They could find little to object to in its tone and content, but it is led by two of the country's most notorious "Hollywood liberals": Pitt and Sean Penn, both of whom seem to be red rags to the Christian right (among other causes, Pitt has campaigned for same-sex marriage, and once declared that he and Jolie would not marry until gay couples were allowed to). Alongside the biblical overtones, The Tree of Life also advances a Darwinist history of creation. The movie could give churchgoers a serious headache. But like Malick, Pitt has no time for critics of the movie – and there are many. It was both booed and applauded at Cannes.
Pitt has moved on. His and Jolie's twins were born straight after the movie had been shot – "I remember because we were thinking up names during the shoot" – then he went on to Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. He's currently shooting the action thriller World War Z. "I like extremes. A little highbrow, a little lowbrow." He talks of wanting to pursue his love of architecture, but his time working with Malick seems to have stayed with him, and not just because he's still operating as the director's media ambassador. It seems to have brought his own beliefs into sharper focus: "Watching the film, and I've seen many cuts, I'm a guy who fights the idea of heaven but what I do respect is that there is a greater power than anything we understand, and for me the film is about that. Perhaps we don't need these religious concoctions to pillow the fear of death. Just the fact that there is an unknown, and something greater, can bring a feeling of peace. That's enough for me."
