Showing posts with label Interview Magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Interview Magazine. Show all posts

Saturday, April 13, 2024






“In order to be able to push any artist to an extreme,” says the director Danya Taymor, “you get the best results by earning their trust first.” It’s a philosophy that’s proven particularly useful in Taymor’s latest effort: the muscular and ambitious musical adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s seminal coming-of-age novel The Outsiders, which opens on Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theater tonight. The story, by now, is well-trodden, following the disaffected boys in a pair of rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs, in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1967. But despite having been adapted twice—by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983, and again for television in 1990—Taymor’s version, with a punchy book by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine and arousing, folk-pop music by Jamestown Revival and Levine, is primed to introduce it to a new audience.

Angelina Jolie, who came on as a producer after seeing the world premiere production at the La Jolla Playhouse last spring, couldn’t be more thrilled. “It’s such an extraordinary study of man through the eyes of a young girl who clearly had so much love and affection and understanding [for them] at such a young age,” the actor says. “We see them at their lowest, we see them trying, we see them loyal, we see them loving, we see them broken, we see them violent.” Last week, as the cast put the finishing touches on the show (and the aftershocks of a 4.8-magnitude earthquake echoed through New York City), she and Taymor got together at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre to talk about building character, embracing collaboration, and why The Outsiders stands the test of time. ———



DANYA TAYMOR: Did you get to see any of our last little rehearsals?

ANGELINA JOLIE: Was it emotional?

TAYMOR: Yeah, even though it’s not the end, it can feel like that.

JOLIE: It’s the end of a chapter.

TAYMOR: It is, but I think that can feel sad. The new moon is going to happen next week, so I feel like we’re aligned. But yeah, it was emotional. We did our last warmup and our last mirror. Everybody led one. Sometimes I do them in partners, but this was a big circle.

JOLIE: Well, let’s talk about that, because that’s such an unusual thing you do as a director. I’ve watched the effect it has on all of the artists. How did you come to that process?

TAYMOR: I started at this little theater called The Flea, and I was doing a play about two sisters in Colorado. I had these great, very New York City actresses. I was like, “We’ve got to get in our bodies if they’re going to feel like they live on this farm where they’re crutching sheep asses.” So I started doing a physical warm-up. And because they played sisters, I thought, “These girls who are not related need to really know each other.” That’s when I started doing mirrors, where you have eye contact and one person leads, and the other follows. And then, over time, through assisting other directors or working in different spaces, I’ve sort of accumulated other things that have made it into the warm-up. There’s an amazing thing called Memory Play I learned from an Israeli director. It’s Tadeusz Kantor’s method, he’s a Polish director. He asked people to give memories, and then you pick two of the memories and make little plays with them.

JOLIE: With no words.

TAYMOR: With no words. It’s a way to get to know one another and to learn how to touch each other’s bodies with consent, so that when you have to do it on stage, you have a familiarity and you can be free.

JOLIE: It’s the things you’ve done like that that have made this such a community, because this really could have gone so many different ways. You have so many young people on that stage doing so much work, and it’s really, really challenging work, some of the most difficult work I’ve ever seen. But you’ve nurtured them, you’ve pushed them. You’re a very strong director. I’ve noticed that.

TAYMOR: Thank you.

JOLIE: But equally, you’ve been like, “I want to make sure you’re safe and feel good about this and know that this is within you, but I’m going to push you so you can discover something or go somewhere you’re not comfortable.”

TAYMOR: In order to be able to push any artist to an extreme, you get the best results by earning their trust first.

JOLIE: Right.

TAYMOR: I remember being an actor in college and being laughed at by a director and it made me want to shut down. I was actually unable to do the thing they wanted me to do. It’s a feeling that stayed with me because it did the opposite of what the director wanted. I think about that a lot, because I do want to push people and be rigorous and demand excellence, but you can do that in a joyful and healthy way, where people feel taken care of.

JOLIE: The moment last night, where they come off stage and they see you and they have such a big smile and they hug you, it’s such a beautiful relationship. This material needed it. I think that’s why it’s so successful, because everybody’s so deeply truthful up there.

TAYMOR: It’s not tangible, but it’s arguably the most important thing. You want everybody to have skin in the game and feel responsible, like it’s theirs, and not like they’re just a prop inside of it.

JOLIE: It’s so clear that they do. Everybody has their moment. And you’re not just doing it to do it. Some people give an actor a moment so they have a moment. But you have the storytelling and the understanding of who these different people are, why these different characters are so essential to the story and the world of the show. And then you have special moments that really suit them, which is beautiful. The best directors I’ve worked with have understood me and the character enough to help us become one.

TAYMOR: You have to fuse. It’s a big ask, because you’re asking them not to put armor between themselves and the character, and that can bring up some scary stuff. But fusion is what excites me so much about acting as an art form, especially in the theater. For them it’s cool to feel ownership of this character, of their arc in this world.

JOLIE: It’s your first musical. I know you study a lot and you’re smart with who you surround yourself with, but there must’ve been times you felt a bit daunted or unsure. Were there particular areas you felt you had to give extra focus?

TAYMOR: I think the size of it is well beyond a play, because you have way more high-level collaborators. In a play, it’s you and the playwright. Here, it’s you and the book writer, the composers, the choreographers, the music director. It’s just huge. But I love collaboration, and it’s a big reason why I’m a director in the first place. But there were a few times where I was like, “Who’s in charge? Oh, fuck, it’s me.”

JOLIE: “Who’s going to manage this?”

TAYMOR: Yeah. Another thing I learned, and not in a cocky way, is that the way you walk into a space when you’re the director matters so much. So even when you’re feeling challenged, if I come in with a good, forward-moving attitude, we’re going to do better work. If I come in pissed and irritated, we’re going to get less done.

JOLIE: That is a big thing to learn, and it’s very, very true. Even though we know that, it’s hard not to get frustrated, especially when you’re trying to move the ship forward.

TAYMOR: Definitely.

JOLIE: I’m not the most patient person. [Laughs]

TAYMOR: Me neither. But I’ve become more patient because we get results. It’s not always easy, but at least a musical is less lonely than a play. I’ve got Rick and Jeff [Kuperman], the choreographers. When I’m really weak or feeling tired, I could say, “Hey, guys.”

JOLIE: “Can you take over?” And this is from having never directed a play, and certainly not a musical, but I’ve been amazed by so much of what you have to decide with everyone, the music, the edit, the cue. You have to decide where you throw the audience’s focus, when the music starts, where you cut, where you leave the pauses, the pacing, the tone, all these things that you usually have time for in other genres. You’re all making this beautiful thing together. You’re all speaking such a strong language and coordinating so much at the same time. To then have that effect and move the story forward has just been amazing to watch and to experience.

TAYMOR: And to your point about when edits happen, in theater your edit happens live, in front of people, which is excruciating but amazing. It’s a different job than directing a film, because in a film, you want to get everything you possibly can, and then later you’ll decide how it all works together and what the rhythm of it is. You may have hunches, but that could change. In the theater, and especially in a musical, you have so much and so little control. One thing that’s special about our musical is the use of silence and stillness. We can only have silence because we have noise or music. You can’t create silence out of silence.



JOLIE: [Pauses] We might be having another earthquake.

TAYMOR: I felt that. Does it feel like an earthquake or does it feel like a train? It’s crazy that New York is having an earthquake. The world is so out of balance.

JOLIE: I know. Anyway, the teenagers are real, and that’s why it’s been so relevant for so long. They want to have conversations, whether it’s talking about an earthquake in New York or anything. There’s so much happening around them, that to meet them where they’re at and have stories that are helping them see how others move through loss, suicide, violence, bullying, poverty, pain, racism, is essential. It’s important to witness and be exposed to stories that talk about some of the realities of life without simplifying or softening them. A lot of young people, like the ones we saw last night that were so emotional about it, need to be able to have these discussions.

TAYMOR: Definitely. I was Ponyboy’s age when I lost a very good friend to suicide. And while we wish that young people didn’t experience violence or loss or abuse, they do. I’ve thought about my friend a lot while making this. I’m thinking, “Oh wow, this wouldn’t have made it better or made it go away, but it could have helped me move through it because it can feel so isolating if you have violence in your home or you have experienced loss.” It’s a gift that Susie Hinton’s book gave to so many people.

JOLIE: Yes, absolutely. I’m very excited for people to see it.

TAYMOR: Me too.

JOLIE: I think when people hear that it’s a musical, it doesn’t make sense to them, right? People say, “How is that a musical?” And you can completely understand why that would be very challenging to do. It clearly is. I’ve watched you all wrestle with finding the tone, finding the balance. At every turn, when there was a choice to be made, you always made the harder choice, which is such a credit to you as a director and to every single artist that’s around this.

TAYMOR: Thank you. JOLIE: You really did. I had times where I was nervous for everyone, even physically. Or I thought, “Could that need be met emotionally every night? Are they ready to take on any more?” But I love that all of you decided that that was the way this was going to be done.

TAYMOR: Well, that takes me back to the warm-up and building of the group. For Ponyboy, for instance, every night he has to go through so much. But at the end, he’s always going to sit down at a table with his brothers, so you know that even though you have to go through this tremendous grief, there’s a place where you’re going to land softly. I’m trying to build something that can be repeated but also be alive, which is a crazy contradiction. It’s impossible for it to be the same every night, so I want to encourage liveness. I think it can also help to think of it as a ride. You’re like, “Oh, fuck. I messed up this part of the ride.” Well, where’s the next place that you can get back on so you don’t become demoralized?

JOLIE: That’s so wonderful. That’s a big gift to be able to give an artist and a person. You’re allowed to be human and you’re allowed to have bad days and be imperfect.

TAYMOR: And when you ask people to be as exposed as I’m asking these actors to be, you do have to give them softness, a way to refill or to protect themselves. Early on, when I was doing intense material, I didn’t know as much about how to build care inside the system of the play. I remember doing a play and watching an actor’s light as a human being go out. The performance was amazing, but they were sad.

JOLIE: It’s a big deal for you to see that. I can tell you, as an artist, I’ve been in a place where I’ve felt like it was just me taking care of myself. You’re pushed, you’re drained. They’ll pull crazy out of you, they’ll pull pain out of you, but they don’t put you back together. It’s taken me getting older to be able to better find that balance for myself.

TAYMOR: It’s hard.

JOLIE: That’s such a gift to give them. Maybe it was you who said this to me, about the view of men in this piece. It’s written by a woman, and now directed by a woman, but The Outsiders is such a beautiful way to see and understand men. I think it’s very true to life. I love these men, and my daughter does, and you do. Why do we love these men? They’re not perfect. We see them at their lowest, we see them trying, we see them loyal, we see them loving, we see them broken, we see them violent. It’s such an extraordinary study of man through the eyes of a young girl who clearly had so much love and affection and understanding [for them] at such a young age.

TAYMOR: Yeah, she did. She also had compassion. Something I think about a lot is that the outsiders are not just the greasers. She sees why even the characters you would think of as the villains are the way they are, how wealth and power and privilege can actually corrode the person who holds it.

JOLIE: Right.

TAYMOR: I think that’s why people really love Kevin [William Paul’s] performance as Bob, because it’s real. He really isn’t trying to be “good.” The only way he knows how to feel is through violence. We don’t know what his home life is like. There’s something so profound about Susie [Hinton’s] mind, that she was curious about that. It’s an amazing story because it appeals to people across age, race, class, gender, and political ideology. The material is so open. I think there’s a chance that really different kinds of people could all end up in the same place, which is very rare right now.

JOLIE: And very necessary. Somehow, you’ve managed to do all of that and make it one of the most entertaining—

TAYMOR: That’s not a bad word.

JOLIE: It isn’t a bad word. It’s intense and it’s dramatic and real and authentic and grounded, and it’s also very entertaining. That is very, very hard to pull off. I think it’s extraordinary what you’ve done. When I see someone sitting in their pain, I’m not as moved. But when I see someone still trying to live, still trying to laugh, still trying to rise above it, that’s always very moving.

TAYMOR: Yes, there’s a great Chekhov stage direction which is “through tears.” Not “in tears,” but through tears, which I find so active. I thought about that a lot when directing these painful scenes. You’re trying to move through, you’re not sitting in this.

JOLIE: No.

TAYMOR: Rarely do we just sit in it.

JOLIE: No, but acting sometimes can feel like that.





“I considered that the story takes place in Tulsa 1967, and the performers I dressed are mostly the Greasers,” Jolie told Teen Vogue about the red carpet premiere. “I also tried to listen, and each person I dressed had a hand in designing or choosing their own pieces. I don’t believe in styling people. I like creating looks with artists."

For the looks, Jolie worked with famed tattoo artist Mark Mahoney to embroider iconic lines and phrases from the story onto the looks, like “stay gold.” She explained, "This is a team effort with tailors and embroiderers and, above all, Mark Mahoney."

Sky Lakota-Lynch, who plays Johnny Cade, Jolie chose vintage and integrated Mahoney’s original tattoo patches. Ensemble cast member, Renni Anthony Magee wore a custom Atelier Jolie look by Mimi Plange. Jolie’s

daughter Vivienne wore a boiler suit by Atelier Jolie and her son, Pax paid homage to the time period wearing ‘60s vintage.

Jolie wore a Chloe x Atelier Jolie dress.



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Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Random Fuzzy
HOPKINS: I’ve read you had a struggle with booze and all that.
PITT: Well, I just saw it as a disservice to myself, as an escape.

HOPKINS: And you’re as easy going as ever.
PITT: Pretty much, it’s my gliding speed. But I lose it at times. I get sucked into something, and I can lose it. I take my hands off the wheel.
He first admitted he had a drinking problem in his April 2017 GQ interview, but this is the first time he talked about losing his temper to the point of totally losing control and taking his "hands off the wheel."  This is a much bigger admission than simply his drinking.  He is moving closer to what actually transpired on the plane.
He was initially in denial that he "lost it" on the plane and the story he gave when news of the DCFS' involvement leaked was that he was drunk when he confronted Maddox.  Other reports said he only became drunk after.  The tendency to "lose it" is as serious as being an alcoholic but perhaps a more difficult problem to solve.  Under the  Custody Stipulation he was required to undergo weekly individual therapy and weekly group therapy (Alcoholics Anonymous).  He said he continues to have therapy and has added meditation among others to his regular regimen.

I’m realizing, as a real act of forgiveness for myself for all the choices that I’ve made that I’m not proud of, that I value those missteps, because they led to some wisdom, which led to something else. You can’t have one without the other. I see it as something I’m just now getting my arms around at this time in my life. But I certainly don’t feel like I can take credit for any of it.
That he struggled to forgive himself for those mistakes gives a hint of their gravity.   He now appreciates the constructive side of the experience -- his gaining wisdom, working on self improvement, and being more sensitive and appreciative of everyone and everything around him.
PITT: I am quite famously a not-crier. Is that a term? I hadn’t cried in, like, 20 years, and now I find myself, at this latter stage, much more moved—moved by my kids, moved by friends, moved by the news. Just moved. I think it’s a good sign. I don’t know where it’s going, but I think it’s a good sign.
PITT: What I hear you saying is that as we get older, we get out of our minds, and we’re able to witness the beauty and the wonder that we’re surrounded by in every minute detail. We miss that when we’re young.

PITT: I really feel it outside. I feel it in nature, which I did have moments of when I was a child. But I’m so much more aware of it now, and more in tune with it. There’s so much mystery and so much wonder, and I’m good with that.

PITT: I agree. I’m seeing that these days. I think we’re living in a time where we’re extremely judgmental and quick to treat people as disposable. We’ve always placed great importance on the mistake. But the next move, what you do after the mistake, is what really defines a person. We’re all going to make mistakes. But what is that next step? We don’t, as a culture, seem to stick around to see what that person’s next step is. And that’s the part I find so much more invigorating and interesting.
He is telling the world that when he reveals the depth of his mistakes, not to focus only on them but to also see his next steps -- how he worked to make things right.
HOPKINS: Yes. Why do we do the things we do? We have no idea. I don’t know why I drank all my life. I did it because it was the only thing I knew. I look back now and I think, “Well, it wasn’t bad, but I don’t want to do it again.” I caused a bit of damage then, but I’ve made my apologies to people for doing what I did. It’s all part of being alive. And whatever power there is in us, it’s forgiving. It’s over. Forget it. Just move on.
PITT: I find that beautiful. And it makes me think of how prone we are to want to see things in black and white, and not really investigate the grays.
He is one of the grays, he made some bad mistakes but he isn't a bad person.

Much of what Brad said during the Ad Astra promo referred to his own personal situation and were not applicable to his character, Roy McBride.  He spoke about growing up thinking a father shouldn't show weakness.  That was not Clifford McBride's problem -- he only cared about his goal and simply didn't care about his wife or son.  Roy didn't have children.  It was noted by his superiors in the film that Roy had an exemplary record and his pulse never rose above 80bpm even in stressful situations. So what he said in some of his voice overs -- that he was self-destructive, had screwed up so often, was tough when he should have been tender, etc. -- referred to Brad's own personal real-life situation.  The message he gives both in the promo and in the movie itself form part of his admission of his problems, state his commitment to his "next steps," and the family coming back together just as Roy's wife did.

I’ve been playing with sculpture in a sculpting studio the last few years, and our mutual friend said you’ve been painting like a banshee. What is it about that? To me, it’s another form of creating,
“We’re human, we want purpose, we want meaning in our lives.” But to attain that, the key is two things: staying creative and being with the people we love.
In a previous interview he said he had been thinking of where he'd want to spend the last stage of his life.  His greater appreciation of nature has led him to consider the mountains.  He can sanguinely turn his attention to life's end stage because he already has everything he needs to look forward to a meaningful and purposeful long life -- like Frank Gehry's.  Sculpture allows him to stay creative autonomously without the necessity of being part of a Hollywood team. The steps he took after his mistakes have enabled him to be with the people he loves. 


--- Fussy





By
Photography Buck Ellison
Stylist Mel Ottenberg
Published December 2, 2019

Hopkins first worked with Brad Pitt in 1994’s western epic Legends of the Fall. They reunited for 1998’s fantasy drama Meet Joe Black. This past October, the two veteran actors met up at a hotel in Beverly Hills to discuss, among other things, the beauty of embracing our mistakes

BRAD PITT: Do you believe in fate? And I don’t mean in destiny or greatness. I just mean that things are fated.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yes, I do.
PITT: I’ve come to believe this in the last few years. How do you describe it?
HOPKINS: I’ve been dreaming of elephants. I don’t know why. There was a film I saw, when I was a child, called Elephant Boy. The elephant would take Sabu, the main character, through the jungle, and I remember sitting there with my grandfather watching it. My impression is that I sat on this big beast, whatever it is—life. At some point, I made an unconscious choice to sit on this beautiful, powerful thing. And I just go where it takes me. I think that what happens to people like you and myself. We don’t even know why. Maybe it’s a desire to escape from something. But what I believe now is that we can’t take credit or blame.
PITT: I feel the same. Certainly the credit. The blame I’m still wrestling with.
HOPKINS: What’s the blame?
PITT: I’m realizing, as a real act of forgiveness for myself for all the choices that I’ve made that I’m not proud of, that I value those missteps, because they led to some wisdom, which led to something else. You can’t have one without the other. I see it as something I’m just now getting my arms around at this time in my life. But I certainly don’t feel like I can take credit for any of it.
HOPKINS: I’ve read you had a struggle with booze and all that.
PITT: Well, I just saw it as a disservice to myself, as an escape.
HOPKINS: It was necessary.
PITT: To some degree, yes.
HOPKINS: It’s a gift. I myself needed to hide it, years ago.
PITT: I remember on Meet Joe Black, you were talking about it. You had dumped it.
HOPKINS: Forty-five years, almost. But I’m not an evangelist about it.
PITT: Nor I.
HOPKINS: But I look at it, and I think, “What a great blessing that was, because it was painful.”I did some bad things. But it was all for a reason, in a way. And it’s strange to look back and think, “God, I did all those things?” But it’s like there’s an inner voice that says, “It’s over. Done. Move on.”
PITT: So you’re embracing all your mistakes. You’re saying, “Let’s be our foibles, our embarrassment. There’s beauty in that.”
HOPKINS: It’s great.
PITT: I agree. I’m seeing that these days. I think we’re living in a time where we’re extremely judgmental and quick to treat people as disposable. We’ve always placed great importance on the mistake. But the next move, what you do after the mistake, is what really defines a person. We’re all going to make mistakes. But what is that next step? We don’t, as a culture, seem to stick around to see what that person’s next step is. And that’s the part I find so much more invigorating and interesting.
HOPKINS: We’ve all screwed up.
PITT: “Fuck it.” That was one of the first things I heard you say, back during Legends of the Fall when I was just getting my opportunity. And it always stuck with me. It seems to be a theme, a guiding principle. “Fuck it.”
HOPKINS: I once asked a Jesuit priest, “What is the shortest prayer in the world?” He said,“Fuck it.” It’s the prayer of release. Just say, “Fuck it.” None of it is important. The important thing is to enjoy life as it is. Your life today, it’s fantastic.
PITT: It’s all relative, isn’t it?
HOPKINS: I’ve had such a ball in my life, and I can’t believe I’m here.
PITT: You’re as ferocious as ever. You feel as strong as ever. You’re as vibrant as ever.
HOPKINS: And you’re as easy going as ever.
PITT: Pretty much, it’s my gliding speed. But I lose it at times. I get sucked into something, and I can lose it. I take my hands off the wheel.
HOPKINS: You’re human.
PITT: I’m human. I have the privilege of sometimes getting to hangout with Frank Gehry. He just turned 90 this last year and is as creative as ever, creating some of the great buildings of our time. And it makes me think, “We’re human, we want purpose, we want meaning in our lives.” But to attain that, the key is two things: staying creative and being with the people we love.
HOPKINS: That’s it. I’m so honored that you’re doing this, because you have this natural power of life in you. On Meet Joe Black, you were very quiet and you didn’t cause any trouble. I was the troublemaker on that set.
PITT: I was actually going through a difficult time during that film. I felt pretty shackled. I didn’t feel very free.
HOPKINS: You didn’t?
PITT: Not at all. With Legends I did. I felt pretty good out there. So what was it about The Two Popes? It’s fascinating. Watching you and Jonathan Pryce was like watching Djokovic and Federer in the finals. They’re amazing scenes. It felt pretty special, what you guys were doing.
HOPKINS: Well, it was. I didn’t know Jonathan before. We had such a laugh, because he was number one on the call sheet, and I’d say, “But I’m a Sir.”
PITT: [Laughs] That’s great.
HOPKINS: My agent phoned, and he said, “The Pope.” And I said, “Okay.” I did a bit of research—not research, but I tried to figure out the truth of it all, without going in too deep. I arrived in Rome, and it’s like John Wayne said. Spend one year in Monument Valley and you don’t have to act.
PITT: There are some longer scenes, which I still adore, but which don’t seem as palatable anymore in the cinema experience. I understand that The Two Popes will come out in theaters, and then on Netflix. I really like that we have these streaming services, because I’m seeing gutsy material. I’m seeing material that studios aren’t able to gamble on. Through streaming services, artists are the ones who are able to gamble. I feel like cinema is being reduced more and more to spectacle, something more sensational. I don’t mean that as a negative, but I’m seeing more thought-provoking pieces like The Two Popes being done, and I’m pretty grateful for it.
HOPKINS: It’s wonderful. I watched The Tree of Life again, and then I went back into The Thin Red Line [also directed by Terrence Malick], on streaming. I’ve watched some amazing series, British things, episodical things.
PITT: Killing Eve was good.
HOPKINS: Have you seen Happy Valley?
PITT: I haven’t.
HOPKINS: I’m not a great fan of going to movies anymore. Except, for example, I went to see Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. I’m not great at going to see the green screen films. I’ve been in a few of them and they’re fun, but they don’t grab me. I’m a bit too old for that.
PITT: It’s exactly that. It’s fun.
HOPKINS: People ask me questions about present situations in life, and I say, “I don’t know, I’m just an actor. I don’t have any opinions. Actors are pretty stupid. My opinion is not worth anything. There’s no controversy for me, so don’t engage me in it, because I’m not going to participate.”
PITT: I feel the same. I don’t care. I’m glad things are always evolving and changing, and complaining about it won’t do any good. You work with what you have. Like digital, they’re doing amazing things with it, so I don’t lament that film is being used less and less. 
What about the responsibility you feel when playing a real-life character? There’s no way to get the actual life, beat-by-beat, of a person, but you aim for an essence, correct?
HOPKINS: Oliver Stone gave me the part of Nixon, and I remember thinking, “Why would he give me that part?” And he said, “Because I’ve read interviews about you being a loner. That was Nixon.” So I watched a lot of Nixon films. I went down to Yorba Linda, California, to see the house where he was born. Bill Clinton told me that when he became president, he would phone Nixon every week.
PITT: Really?
HOPKINS: He’d ask him about China and Russia. Clinton said this of him: He was a brilliant politician, but there was something in him that was so insecure. And Oliver just tried to portray the man as he was—neither good or bad, but a man who makes mistakes, as we all do. I found it very emotional to play him, because I could feel what it must have been like, the disgrace of having to resign. And then the humiliation of having to say goodbye.
PITT: Getting on the helicopter.
HOPKINS: And then I read about his wife. She couldn’t bear to look down at the lawn of the White House as they took off.
PITT: It’s a fascinating story from a humanistic point of view. The indelible moment for me was when he—you—have the moment of, “Why don’t they like me?”
HOPKINS: That’s it. You can see the pain in him, and you think, “Well, am I better than him? No. I’m not better than him. I’ve got my own immoral quirks.”
PITT: In some way, it comes back to fate.
HOPKINS: Yes. Why do we do the things we do? We have no idea. I don’t know why I drank all my life. I did it because it was the only thing I knew. I look back now and I think, “Well, it wasn’t bad, but I don’t want to do it again.” I caused a bit of damage then, but I’ve made my apologies to people for doing what I did. It’s all part of being alive. And whatever power there is in us, it’s forgiving. It’s over. Forget it. Just move on.
PITT: I find that beautiful. And it makes me think of how prone we are to want to see things in black and white, and not really investigate the grays.
HOPKINS: There’s a wonderful Marlon Brando documentary, and there’s one scene of him with his father. He’s the greatest actor ever, but his father never even gave him acknowledgement. There’s a shot of his father, sitting down next to his son, and Mike Wallace asks, “So, what do you think of your son’s success?” And his father says, “Yeah, it’s okay.” And you see the hurt in Brando. I cried. The thing about me is, I cry at the drop of a hat, because everything moves me, because I’m getting old. Inside, we get the wallpaper stripped off all of our defenses, bit by bit, clawed away. Do you cry often?
PITT: I am quite famously a not-crier. Is that a term? I hadn’t cried in, like, 20 years, and now I find myself, at this latter stage, much more moved—moved by my kids, moved by friends, moved by the news. Just moved. I think it’s a good sign. I don’t know where it’s going, but I think it’s a good sign.
HOPKINS: You’ll find, as you get older, that you just want to weep.
PITT: Really?
HOPKINS: Yes. It’s not even about grief. It’s about the glory of life.
PITT: I see as much joy in your face as on the day I met you, if not more. I’ve been playing with sculpture in a sculpting studio the last few years, and our mutual friend said you’ve been painting like a banshee. What is it about that? To me, it’s another form of creating, but why is it meaningful to you?
HOPKINS: It’s meaningful to me because it keeps me out of trouble. It keeps me off the streets. Before Stella and I got married, she found scripts of mine with drawings in them. She said, “I want you to do some pictures for the wedding, a party gift.” I said, “I can’t.” She said, “Well, what are these? Just do them.” She had them framed and given out. And then she said, “Right, now I want you to start painting.” I said, “I can’t paint.” She said, “Will they put you in jail? Paint.” So I got a studio with canvases and I started painting, and I started selling them. And in the studio, in Malibu, I had some paintings hung up there, by the pool, and Stan Winston, who was a bonafide artist, came over for a barbecue, and he came into the studio to have a pee. I happened to be in there, and he said, “Who did all these?” I said, “I did.” He said, “Why are you pulling your face like that?” I said, “Well, I have no training.” He said, “Don’t take one lesson. You’ve got it. You’re an artist. You can paint. I couldn’t do that because I’m an academic painter, but you’re free.”
PITT: Isn’t it exciting when you realize that there’s so much to be discovered, and new things that you love doing?
HOPKINS: People say, “What’s your vision?” I say, “I don’t have any vision. I go in, look at the canvas, and just plop paint on it.”
PITT: How long can you lose yourself in there?
HOPKINS: All day.
PITT: I find that some days in the studio are arduous and lonely and monotonous, and other days I find it sensuous and beautiful—things are flowing, and it’s sublime.
HOPKINS: Beautiful, isn’t it?
PITT: As actors, what we do is a team sport. Making a film takes everyone. And we contribute what we contribute. Sometimes it’s going to be better than what we gave on the day. Sometimes it’s weaker than what we gave on the day. But it’s a team effort. I was really struck by this longing, this need to do something autonomous. I feel like it’s spiritual.
HOPKINS: It’s important to do it for the passion, the sheer enjoyment, the life force, but to not take it too seriously.
PITT: Fuck it.
HOPKINS: Fuck it! It works. I think, sitting here, that it sounds very touchy-feely, but it’s that infant side of us. I carry a photograph of myself in my phone, of when I was just a little boy on the beach. I look at him and I say, “We did okay, kid.”
PITT: When you say that, I don’t think you’re talking about worldly success.
HOPKINS: No.
PITT: I think you’re talking about the game of being human.
HOPKINS: Well, it’s such a mystery when our first memories are made. I can remember that day on the beach with my father. I’d been crying, because I’d lost a little candy he had given me in the sand. And that frightened little boy—who was destined to grow up and be an idiot at school, clueless, alone, lonely, angry, all those things—I look at him and say, “We did okay.” And the fact is that one day we’ll be gone. Our parents are gone. Most of my friends I’ve known have gone. I was driving around Venice the other day, and I thought, “It’s all a dream. What a struggle it all is. It’s all an illusion, but it’s the glory of life, the sheer glory of looking for it in everything.” And I’ve become aware of that now, more than ever. It’s in there. It’s in my cat, it’s in my dog, it’s in you. How could it be otherwise? I watch my cat jumping to a little pinch on the fireplace. Now, he can’t write a book, he doesn’t know anything about philosophy or mathematics. But how the hell does he do that? That is totally awe-inspiring.
PITT: What I hear you saying is that as we get older, we get out of our minds, and we’re able to witness the beauty and the wonder that we’re surrounded by in every minute detail. We miss that when we’re young.
HOPKINS: We’re too busy.
PITT: With our own.
HOPKINS: But that’s a necessary part of growing up. Are you feeling that rising power of life?
PITT: Very much so.
HOPKINS: It shows in you.
PITT: I really feel it outside. I feel it in nature, which I did have moments of when I was a child. But I’m so much more aware of it now, and more in tune with it. There’s so much mystery and so much wonder, and I’m good with that.
HOPKINS: It’s great, isn’t it?

---








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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Interview Mag



From Interview Magazine

Photography Steven Klein
Stylist ludivine poiblanc



Brad Pitt''s new film, Killing Them Softly, is, in many ways, a throwback to a kind of film that seemed to get made all the time in the 1970s and was regularly reinvented in the 1990s: a crime story in search of a moral center, and the kind of parabolic tale that is filled with skeezy characters and suspect schemes but simmers with the very modernist sense that something larger (and probably bad) is at work. Directed by Andrew Dominik and adapted from the 1974 novel Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins, the film nominally tells the story of a low-level criminal ecosystem that is suddenly disrupted when a couple of petty hoods (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) are recruited to knock over a card game, setting off a chain of events that brings local commerce, as it were, to a halt. To fix the situation, a consortium of unseen overbosses dispatches Pitt's character, an enforcer-for-hire named Jackie Cogan, to take the appropriate corrective measures so that business as usual can resume and everyone can start making money again.

While much of the action in Killing Them Softly plays out in back alleys and dive bars, the film itself has an allegorical quality, set in 2008 as the country struggled to come to grips with the initial onset of the current financial crisis (from which America, of course, still has yet to recover) and prepared to elect Barack Obama to the presidency on the back of a campaign of hope (which would very quickly transform into anxiety and impatience). That framing, though, never fully draws focus from the narrative, in large part because the film is filled with actors who, when thrust into any sort of quasi-mob-related scenario, bring veritable mountains of baggage to the proceedings–among them, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini, and Vincent Curatola (Johnny Sack on The Sopranos), as well as others with definitive presence, like Sam Shepard (in a quiet but pivotal role) and Richard Jenkins (who, hilariously, plays the smarmy middleman who communicates with Pitt's character on behalf of the crime syndicate and tries to keep the whole operation on budget by lowballing him at every turn).

Killing Them Softly, which Pitt also produced through his Plan B shingle, marks his second collaboration with Dominik. (The pair last worked together on the highly underrated 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a carefully drawn western that's a meditation on both westerns and on celebrity.) It also represents the latest in a string of films—unofficially beginning with Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (2006) and continuing through Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (2009) and last year's The Tree of Life and Moneyball—in which Pitt has quietly but assuredly transformed himself as an actor. Of course, Pitt's life offscreen with his partner (and now fiancée) Angelina Jolie and their six children continues to get a lot of attention. But on screen, late-era Brad Pitt has been nothing short of a revelation, cracking himself open freely and readily in film after film. At times, that has translated into a very real kind of vulnerability (see Babel, Jesse James, Tree of Life). At others, it has meant stirring up a certain conviction or resolve (see all of the above plus Inglourious Basterds and Moneyball). But more often than not, it has involved exploring the idea of character, in both the dramatic and the human-emotional senses, as something more tapped into or developed than taken on or assumed.

Guy Ritchie, who directed Pitt in Snatch (2000), recently met up with the 48-year-old actor in London, where Pitt was finishing work on another film, World War Z.


GUY RITCHIE: Okay, we're recording–in airplane-friendly mode for some reason.

BRAD PITT: Get another one going . . . Okay, test, one, two.

RITCHIE: There you go. You've got yours going now, too. We'll get a third recorder going as well. Lovely.

PITT: Lovely. So how's the spot you're doing now?

RITCHIE: Oh, the spot . . . Do you ever watch commercials?

PITT: Not really.

RITCHIE: Well, I've gotta tell you, that's where the real technical talent lies. There aren't many movies where you can spend $3 million on one minute, so when I do a commerical, I can go balls-out and play around with toys and try out new stuff.

PITT: So you can use it as a tester for what you're going to do in your next film.

RITCHIE: I do use it as a bit of a tester, yeah. But the commercial guys are actually more open to the idea of fucking around with stuff and they don't mind if you hit a post because it's so cutting-edge. Commercials will always be technically more advanced than movies. It's a funny thing but they're also so much more efficient. So I try to do one commercial a year just for that reason.

PITT: The fight scene in the forest in Sherlock 2 [Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows] with the Germans with the howitzers—did that come from a commercial? Because I've never seen anything like that.

RITCHIE: That was an amalgam of all sorts of things. But we did try some new stuff. I just think there's room to do more in movies—that you can have almost everything in a film. You can have all the new technical stuff, but you can also keep it edgy enough so it still feels a bit indie, and it can also be accessible enough so that kids can like it, and you can get this lot all around where everyone's a winner and comes out with cred.

PITT: So what's your template for that?
RITCHIE: Dunno. You've just gotta feel it in you. You just gotta feel it.

PITT: What makes you want to go back and see a movie again and again and again? That is what we're talking about, isn't it?

RITCHIE: Let me ask you this then: What gets you excited about making a movie at this point? How do you decide to do one?

PITT: Well, listen, I think I'm at a point now where I feel like I can jump into anything and lay something down that's quality. Someone may be better at it—or maybe not—but I know that if I have a feeling for it, then I can make it interesting. But even more as I get older, it's about the company that I keep. That's the most important thing to me—that if I'm gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it's very important for me to know that I'm working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we're going for something together. That's it, really.

RITCHIE: So it sounds like you're saying that you choose to work with certain directors or writers because of a kind of tone that they set in a sense.

PITT: Yeah. I mean, as you know, so much of making movies is about discovery on the day, what you're figuring out. If you know everything going in, then it's not worth doing—it's already done. So I'm interested in finding people who I think have a voice—and a very specific voice. It's hard to be surprised by a film. It's hard to be surprised by another actor or by a director when you've seen enough and been around. So when I am, or when I forget that I'm watching someone's movie, or when I don't know how someone made a certain turn that I didn't expect . . . You know, I'm in.

RITCHIE: Do you find that there is a correlation between the work that you like and liking the person who created the work?

PITT: Yes. I would say that the directors that I've liked the most are all curious in nature—curious thinkers. They're all big questioners, I would say, first and foremost.

RITCHIE: So then what was it about Andrew Dominik and Killing Them Softly that made you want to do that film?

PITT: Well, I'm a big fan of early Jimmy Caan. I come from a rural environment–well, not completely rural, but more in its mind-set—so to get in and do something urban for me is always fun.



RITCHIE: The accents . . . You should be very comfortable with urban.

PITT: Well, you know, I like a bit of song, and dialect is a song. I'm most comfortable with the Southern dialects, really. It's easy, for example, for me to do Irish because we've got Irish heritage where I come from. We also have some German heritage. The Upper East Coast, though, is a little bit more connected to a British heritage.

RITCHIE: What accents do you suffer with? Which ones are a challenge?

PITT: I've never done a proper Brit.

RITCHIE: Have you tried?

PITT: No, I haven't really tried. It would have to be something specific.

RITCHIE: Cockney?

PITT: Irish is lovely for me. But Cockney? Too many people know it too well.

RITCHIE: It's fucking hard to do.

PITT: You just have to get one misstep . . . [laughs] That's an easy one to fall into caricature. Bad caricature.

RITCHIE: What about posh English?

PITT: No, not that either. I'd say I would have to go up north and do something like Scouse or Brummie.

RITCHIE: I can't do an American accent. It's too close for me.

PITT: You tried, though, on Snatch. Remember?

RITCHIE: [laughs] I can't do it. But, okay, getting back to the film . . . What, for you, is at the center of it?

PITT: Well, what Andrew wanted to do with this film was interesting: He wanted to talk about America—and America as a business—but he wanted to hide it within this low-end crime drama. We in America have some grand ideals—and some very strong ideals—but a lot of times, those ideals are used for marketing.
RITCHIE: So does business trump humanity often?

PITT: Yes—I think that's a nice way to put it. In a way, it's a call for responsible capitalism. But Andrew wanted to juxtapose that idea with the financial crisis and effects of that because there's an interesting psychology at play in terms of who we are and what we do when given too much room. It started out in the '90s, under Clinton, with the good intentions of "Everyone should own a house and have a shot at the American dream." So you open up doors to make that possible by giving people these loans. Then, Bush comes in and deregulates everything, so there's no one at the helm, and it becomes easier to take advantage of it because there's no accountability. And then you know what happened from there—a lot of people got hurt. But it also says something about the nature of greed and what can happen when we don't look beyond that. At the end of the day, what it says is that we can't trust ourselves, that we need some governing body. I mean, people knew where things were heading–clearly, we got to the point where banks were actually betting against the very people they were giving these loans to.

RITCHIE: The old double dip . . .

PITT: Yeah, and obviously, it got ugly. But the old adage of capitalism is to make as much as you can for as little as possible. So, I mean, that's the simple arithmetic of it all, but there are these ethical questions at play.



RITCHIE: The film also seems to touch on something about the relationship that people in America have with both politics and the media.

PITT: Well, it's what we were talking about, how so much of what's in the media—at least in American media—falls in line in this way where it's just parodying the mission statement. Again, so much of it seems to be about perception. We are a country that needs a story. You know, marketing is the word that I used earlier, but it's really just a new term for propaganda. It might be a very human thing across the board, but we, in America, love a story—we need a story to get involved in. But then everything becomes more about how the story protects a certain perception as we pick sides.

RITCHIE: So you're saying that the story then becomes more important—

PITT: Than the actual issues, yeah. And, by the way, most people's daily lives are just about surviving. Their lives are about making the weekly nothing and taking the kids out on a Sunday. Most people don't have time to really study the issues. And the media could help us, but there's capitalistic interest in the media outlets as well. It's not the old "CBS added a 1 percent profit—that's all we need to make in order to bankroll our news division," like the thinking was in [Walter] Cronkite's day. It's not that way anymore. I mean, the Internet has done a wonderful thing for us. But democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time.

RITCHIE: One of the things that I noticed in the film, which I liked and thought was very funny, was how organized crime had become caught up in petty bureaucracy. I mean, I wasn't sure who was actually running the card games—and I wasn't sure if I needed to know.

PITT: Right—you never know. There is just this upper echelon who everyone has to negotiate. And what made me laugh and what I think presents so many parallels to politics was that what these guys in the film were dealing with wasn't really the issue itself, but the perception of the issue. It was about getting the perception right so that the people who were making money could continue to make money and everyone else would fall in line as they were supposed to. Again, that's something that relates to the way that our economy works—and, really, politics itself works. The political discussion in America is very seldom about the issues—it's often more about the perception of the issues. We're at a particularly ugly time when we're at such a divide in America, but that divide is not there because everyone is trying to figure out what's best for the people. It's there because one side is trying to win out over the other side.



RITCHIE: So Killing Them Softly is a political film.

PITT: Yes, it is a political film.

RITCHIE: But it's also fun.

PITT: Yes, it's fun too, but it also asks some interesting questions. I mean, who rips Jefferson? [laughs] This film puts it on the line. Andrew does something really well in this film, which is that it's constructed so that you never know exactly what you're watching until the last scene.

RITCHIE: But then you're very clear about what you're watching in the last scene.

PITT: Yeah, then all the tumblers come in and the thing unlocks.

RITCHIE: But then the irony is that there is also a lot of humanity in the movie. At one point, your character talks about how he doesn't like to whack people that he knows because things can get a bit touchy-feely. I liked the subtle humanity of that: that your character can whack a fella that he doesn't know, but he can't whack a fella that he does know. Although he's a guy who kills people, it seems like he's been doing it for so long that the practical aspects of the job have taken their toll. You get the sense that he has tried to kill people or has successfully killed people that he has known before, and that the process of going through that is just exhausting to him. There's something very real-world about that.

PITT: But also, "If I do, then let's not make him suffer. We gotta take his life from him. We all know what's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. But let's not drag it out."

RITCHIE: Obviously you've worked with Andrew Dominik before on Jesse James. It's interesting, because I have about 10 of my mates who I really trust creatively, and all of them—without any ambiguity at all—rank Jesse James in their top 10 films.

PITT: The Assassination of Jesse James remains one of my favorite films that I've done. You know, it's still labeled a loser. In fact, Dominik couldn't get a job for several years afterward because it got labeled that way after the opening weekend. But then we always knew, "That one's a fine-wine film. It's gonna age well."

RITCHIE: You've done some interesting things, though, over the last several years. There's Aldo Raine in Inglourious Basterds . . .

PITT: Good fun.

RITCHIE: Some fucking master strokes in that film.

PITT: I know you love Tarantino as well.

RITCHIE: Then there's Mr. O'Brien in The Tree of Life, Billy Beane in Moneyball—just this eclectic mix of men and characters. Where has your head been at in terms of acting? Has how you approach it or feel about it changed at all?

PITT: You know, right now, this is like a clean-up-the-loose-ends-and-tidy-up-the-place kind of year, which I also look at as a refill kind of year. I'm not good at going back-to-back-to-back-to-back with movies, and it's just now that I'm starting to get my bearings again and a flavor for what's next. But it can't be something repetitive that I've done before. I'm bored to death by that, and when I attempt things like that, it never works–I end up hurting the movie. So it's just about discovery now and finding something new that's interesting to me.



RITCHIE: And, again, the more practical issue of who you're going to work with and spend your time with.

PITT: Right. That's all got to line up, too. Those people have got to be free. So you've got to be thinking about the same thing at the same time. I mean, I've known Quentin since True Romance [1993], and we just never crossed paths in terms of what he was doing and what I was doing. But then it came together for Inglourious Basterds—overnight, it seemed. But I always knew that one day we'd be working together, that he'd call up and I'd go, "Yep," and then we'd go. At this point, the where is also important. I've been in a few nations now, and there are some places that I'd rather not go back to in order to make a film.

RITCHIE: It's funny because there are always creative issues, but those practical issues are also significant: who you're going to be with, where you're going to be together, how everyone's schedules line up, how long it's going to take you away from your family.

PITT: Yeah. I want it to be worthy enough of a story to leave the family, you know? They're everything. The family is first . . . I also don't want to embarrass them.

RITCHIE: [laughs] How do you feel about yourself as an actor now?

PITT: Pretty damn solid. I'd say pretty damn solid.

RITCHIE: You've been producing more, too. Do you enjoy that side of things?

PITT: More than ever. More than anything, actually.

RITCHIE: Really? More than acting?

PITT: Yeah. I'd rather be behind the camera. As a producer, obviously, you're part of a team that brings the story to the screen. It wouldn't be there if you didn't champion it or if you and a group of people weren't championing it. I like that.

RITCHIE: One of the films you're producing is Steve McQueen's next film, 12 Years a Slave, right?

PITT: I'm very excited about that one. I'm a big fan of McQueen. Did you see the [Michael] Fassbender one that he just did, Shame?

RITCHIE: I didn't see Shame.

PITT: Well, it's a shame that you didn't see Shame. There's a real painterly way about McQueen and how he tells stories. They're very quiet . . . It's almost like he broods. But this one we just did, 12 Years a Slave, is a very particular story about American slavery, which is a subject that some people think we've dealt with and done and put away, but then you see this story and you realize that we really haven't. It's based on the memoir of a free black man who lived in the North and who was tricked into slavery in the South. It's just a horror story in a lot of ways. I think it's gonna be interesting.

RITCHIE: Is it still in production?

PITT: Just finished. Just wrapped.

RITCHIE: And then there's World War Z, which you're also in.

PITT: We've got some tidying up to do there, but that one is gonna be big and entertaining. My boys are gonna love it.

RITCHIE: Okay, let's speed on a few.

PITT: Okay.


RITCHIE: Architecture. Obviously, you've got a strong interest there. Does architecture relate in any way to what you do or how you think about life?

PITT: Maybe as far as how I look at structure . . . I guess the way I look at scripts and the way I look at story.

RITCHIE: You've talked before about being instinctual in how you approach things. Has anything surprising ever happened to you as a result of that?

PITT: I don't know . . . I hate anecdotes. [both laugh]

RITCHIE: Well, has there been a moment when following your instincts—maybe even against the advice or the wishes of other people—has really paid off?

PITT: Yes . . . Often.

RITCHIE: Has there ever been a time when you've done it, and even made the right choice, but you now wish maybe you'd approached things differently?

PITT: No, because each misstep leads to the next correct step.

RITCHIE: What about your thoughts on the political front? Obviously it's an election year.

PITT: Well, I just want to avoid confusion with this film and say I'm a big supporter of Obama, and I think he's our best answer for the next four years.

RITCHIE: All of the sudden, I'm playing the pushy interviewer! "We'd love to hear a little bit about Brad's feelings on marriage and fatherhood . . ."

PITT: Yeah, I bet you would. [both laugh]

RITCHIE: It's funny how you take on the role when you do this and get all pushy.

PITT: [laughs] I do appreciate it.

RITCHIE: Should we call it a day then?

PITT: Yeah, let's call it a day.

RITCHIE: Off to France?

PITT: I'm off to France.

RITCHIE: When will you be back?

PITT: Friday night. Where are you? You in L.A.?

RITCHIE: I'm going to L.A. tomorrow for a couple of days.

PITT: Fun, fun, fun.

RITCHIE: See you later.

PITT: Yeah, take it easy.

RITCHIE: Okay. Cheerio!

PITT: Cheerio!





From Thompson on Hollywood

Brad Pitt Talks 'Killing Them Softly,' Failed Democracy & Responsible Capitalism, Plus McQueen's '12 Years A Slave'

News by Sophia Savage
October 9, 2012 1:09 PM


Guy Richie interviewing Brat Pitt for Interview Magazine is quite a read, and the photo spread of Pitt isn't too shabby either. Pitt had a great year in 2011 with "The Tree of Life" and "Moneyball," and he's kept busy with a handful of new projects. He and Richie discuss Andrew Dominik's "Killing Them Softly" (November 30) and the state of American capitalism and democracy, plus the Dominik-Pitt duo's "fine wine" film "The Assassination of Jesse James," Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" (which just wrapped production; Pitt is producing and co-stars with Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor and others), "World War Z" and how Pitt is feeling about himself as an actor: "Pretty damn solid." Check out some highlights below:
How Pitt chooses his projects: "…even more as I get older, it's about the company that I keep. That's the most important thing to me—that if I'm gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it's very important for me to know that I'm working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we're going for something together. That's it, really.

"...I'm interested in finding people who I think have a voice—and a very specific voice. It's hard to be surprised by a film. It's hard to be surprised by another actor or by a director when you've seen enough and been around. So when I am, or when I forget that I'm watching someone's movie, or when I don't know how someone made a certain turn that I didn't expect...You know, I'm in."

On the politics behind "Killing Them Softly": "In a way, it's a call for responsible capitalism. But Andrew wanted to juxtapose that idea with the financial crisis and effects of that because there's an interesting psychology at play in terms of who we are and what we do when given too much room. It started out in the '90s, under Clinton, with the good intentions of 'Everyone should own a house and have a shot at the American dream.' So you open up doors to make that possible by giving people these loans. Then, Bush comes in and deregulates everything, so there's no one at the helm, and it becomes easier to take advantage of it because there's no accountability. And then you know what happened from there—a lot of people got hurt. But it also says something about the nature of greed and what can happen when we don't look beyond that. At the end of the day, what it says is that we can't trust ourselves, that we need some governing body. I mean, people knew where things were heading–clearly, we got to the point where banks were actually betting against the very people they were giving these loans to.

"…And, by the way, most people's daily lives are just about surviving. Their lives are about making the weekly nothing and taking the kids out on a Sunday. Most people don't have time to really study the issues. And the media could help us, but there's capitalistic interest in the media outlets as well,..the Internet has done a wonderful thing for us. But democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time."

On producing instead of acting: "I'd rather be behind the camera. As a producer, obviously, you're part of a team that brings the story to the screen. It wouldn't be there if you didn't champion it or if you and a group of people weren't championing it. I like that."

On "12 Years a Slave": "[It] is a very particular story about American slavery, which is a subject that some people think we've dealt with and done and put away, but then you see this story and you realize that we really haven't. It's based on the memoir of a free black man who lived in the North and who was tricked into slavery in the South. It's just a horror story in a lot of ways."

From NY Daily News

Hollywood’s hottest actor is lukewarm on the profession.
Brad Pitt tells the October/November issue of Interview Magazine that he’s getting increasingly finicky about the movie roles he chooses.
“I want it to be worthy enough of a story to leave the family, you know? They’re everything,” the 48-year-old star told Guy Ritchie, his director on 2000’s “Snatch.” The family is first . . . I also don’t want to embarrass them.”
Angelina Jolie’s fiance also posed for a photo spread for the magazine in which he dresses as a number of different characters, including a hitman and a Rastafarian.
Nowadays, Pitt says, “I’d rather be behind the camera,” adding that he relishes working as a producer.
That doesn’t mean the star of the upcoming, “Killing Them Softly” doesn’t think he can still hack it on screen. When asked by Richie how he feels about himself as an actor, Pitt responded, “Pretty damn solid. I’d say pretty damn solid.”
The roles he has cherrypicked recently - from his Academy Award-nominated performance in “Moneyball” to his critically acclaimed turn in “The Tree of Life” - he picks because he’s interested in the company of the directors behind them.
For “Killing Them Softly,” he says, he was seduced by what looks like an engaging crime thriller - but is really an allegory that takes aim at business and politics in the United States.
“We’re at a particularly ugly time when we’re at such a divide in America, but that divide is not there because everyone is trying to figure out what’s best for the people,” the Obama supporter told Interview. “It’s there because one side is trying to win out over the other side.”
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