Smash Hits – 1993

STUD-U-LIKE! – by Anita Naik

Weeing in a bucket, creating skid marks and gushing about true love. Is this really the behaviour of a sex symbol? Anita Naik finds out.

Brad Pitt is the sort of man who gives good looking sex-gods everywhere a bad name. As the goodlooking cowboy, JD, in Thelma & Louise he oozed sexuality, gave Thelma her first real sex lesson and then stole her last dime. Men: you just can’t trust them can you? Apart from being famous for dropping his trousers and baring his butt, Brad Pitt is the kind of man most guys wish they could be. But what did a guy like Brad Pitt dream about when he was younger? Fame? Fortune? Leggy models? Not according to Brad ‘As a child I’d have dreams where I’d wake in a sweat, crying my head off because of something that happened to my brother. But I used to terrorise the kid. I’d lock him outside naked and make him cry!’

Born on December 18 1963 in Oklahoma as William Bradley Pitt, known as Brad from an early age, he grew up in the heart of American farm land in Missouri. ‘Growing up there was like living in something out of Huckleberry Finn. Lots of rivers and lakes and lots of places to get lost in.’

At 21 he packed his car to the roof and drove off to find fame and fortune in Los Angeles. ‘I had to sleep in the car for a couple of days but after that I got a few odd jobs like driving strippers around in a limo, delivering refridgerators and a stint in a giant chicken costume outside a fast food joint.’ His first big acting break came as Randy, the idiot boyfriend of Jenna Wade’s daughter Charlie on Dallas. This was followed by the TV movie Too Young to Die?. Brad played Billy, a hoodlum who takes advantage of young runaway Amanda (Juliette Lewis). He hooks her on drugs, beats her up and sells her for sex.

It was the start of a beautiful reallife relationship.

Juliette Lewis maintains she fell for him because he had ‘A CD case and matching luggage. I thought that was real organized.’ Brad, in line with his girlfriend’s somewhat abstract description of their relationship, adds, ‘Juliette wants to make artichokes for the world, which is fine by me. But I’d rather munch on my own in a corner.’ They’re obviously made for each other.

A mere three years later Brad and Juliette are one of the Hollywood couples. They are photographed, hotly pursued by the paparazzi and have their trash rifled by dodgy journalists looking for hidden secrets. They both live in the Hollywood Hills – but not together. Brad lives with his three dogs, Deacon, Earl and Maggie. He and Juliette are prone to saying incredibly sicky things like, ‘We’re both each other’s person for life’, ‘Juliette is amazing’, ‘Brad is so cute’ and ‘We ache to see each other when we’re apart.’ For Juliette, having a boyfriend known more than anything for his intense sexiness isn’t the easiest thing to handle. Luckily, Brad is a caring sort of chap and claims ‘I don’t want to do anything that goes against me and Juliette.’

Even nude scenes?

‘I have a problem with an actor and actress just bouncing off each other naked for no reason. It’s just not needed half the time.’

But what about that famous sex scene in Thelma & Louise?

‘Mmm.. it was real sexy to film with 29 other people watching. Half way through the scene someone shouted CUT! And the classic thing happened – you know before a school picture you get a zit? I had a make-up woman trying to cover a zit on my bum. That’s how sexual, romantic and passionate sex scenes are.’

Brad takes being a sex-symbol with a shrug. ‘It’ll come and go. It’s fine but hunks are a dime a dozen out here. Oh, another sex symbol! Great news, right?’

Despite his current sexy-symbol, heart-throb status, he leads a fairly un-Hollywood lifestyle. His house is fairly spartan, one room jammed with musical instruments and recording equipment while other are empty. His bed is a foam pad in his closet. ‘It’s a kind of Southern house. Hardly anything in it, but it’s got a good porch!’ And as if to emphasise his point about being very un-Hollywood, Brad tells of the time he attended the premiere of Juliette Lewis’s film Cape Fear. ‘I was hanging out on the sidelines while Juliette did her publicity stuff when someone starte shouting my name. I turned round and all these camera lights zapped on and someone said, ‘How does it feel to be on Beverly Hills 90210?’ I started laughing and said ‘I’m not on 90210.’ and the lights went off so quick. I got a real kick out of that.’

If you’re suffering serious Brad Pitt withdrawal symptoms watch out for Cool World, a sort of crazy Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Brad plays a human cop who finds himself in charge of cartoon land. His mission is to stop any humans having sex with the cartoon characters and avoid a worldwide disaster. Not easy when Kim Basinger plays the cartoon vixen Holly Would, a gal determined to become real at any cost. Next up is a Robert Redfor film, A River Runs Through It, a tale of two brothers who can’t communicate. In the meantime Brad has just finished working on Kalifornia with Juliette Lewis. Those hoping to see him in sex mode again are going to be sorely disappointed. In order to play serial killer Early Grayce he has gained twenty pounds and had his front tooth chipped. His explanation for this behaviour? ‘Filming is pretty anti-glamourous. You have to do what you can get into character. Just look at Johnny Suede’s underwear. I ripped forever to get those things to look like that. I stretched for hours and even wwanted to put a skid mark in them but they wouldn’t let me.’

Another less than glamourour film moment during the filming of Johnny Suede: ‘My character had to pee into a bucket and I faked it for the camera but the soundman needed the sound of wee hitting the bucket so I volunteered. There’s 50 crew member standing around and I had to pee for 25 seconds next to a girl holding a big boom microphone. Hardly the stuff you’d expect from a heart-throb is it?”