Brad Pitt is on the cover of Esquire’s September issue for their “Mavericks of Hollywood” portfolio. Pitt is joined by a cohort of other famouses, whose pics and profiles will be released over the coming week: Jenna Ortega (on 8/11), Aaron Sorkin (on 8/12), Riz Ahmed (on 8/13), and Sam Rockwell (on 8/14).
In the sprawling interview that accompanies Pitt’s cover, the actor/producer/tabloid fixture talks about everything from sobriety and suicide ideation to what he regrets about his fifties (probably not what you would expect) and what stops him from watching porn (also probably not what you would expect). Here are some of his most illuminating quotes.
“I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon.” Little laugh. He raises his famous opposing-diacritic eyebrows and holds a finger up: “In a more restrained manner. I got overconfident a couple times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities.”
Brad Pitt (Chantal Anderson for Esquire)
“I was never suicidal in any way. It just was not my makeup. In fact, if I have any afflictions, it’s probably being a congenital optimist. Which has helped many times, and it’s also gotten me—I’ve walked foolishly head-on into a Mack truck because of my optimism. Or, as my forever-funny friend David Fincher will say, Yeah, you see the glass as half full, but it’s half full of urine. Anyway, I’ve never been suicidal except for one little period. And in that one little period, I just thought—I just couldn’t—just didn’t see a way out. The pain was so oppressive that—I wasn’t going to act on this, but I could feel—I could feel the cold steel of the bullet in my head, and it felt like relief. And I thought, Oh, okay, now I understand —I understand suicide, in the sense that it’s just relief. It’s just looking for relief from the pain. But I also think we have incredible survival instincts. And for me, that immediately kicked in, but it was just . . .” He pauses, his head kind of rolling around on his neck, grappling, groping. “Yeah. Like, listen: This sh*t ain’t easy.” He stares at me. “And you’re talking to a guy who won the lottery.”
Brad Pitt (Chantal Anderson for Esquire)
“God, I want my fifties back,” he says, locking in on me a second. “I would do more. Your fifties are just—man, anything that’s on your mind, go. Go attack it. Go attack it now.”
“Bad acting drives me crazy. It’s why I can’t watch porn.”
Brad Pitt (Chantal Anderson for Esquire)
“There’s a lot of pushback against AI, but AI is going to be the very thing that, if used as a tool, is going to help these mid-budget films, forty- to ninety-million-dollar budgeted films, get made,” he says.
“Grief, if you survive it, leaves a gaping hole, but it also leaves profound beauty. It’s an aching beauty, but it’s beauty.”
Check out the full profile on Esquire.com .
Brad Pitt (Chantal Anderson for Esquire)
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