PS. We also added the Tempus interview (July 2020). Thanks also Shann!
How did you train, or what did you have to do before you knew you were gonna be in the roof of that house and had to take your shirt off?
Uh… uh…
Uh, no. You know, I look at films like- well, depends on what character you’re doing. But in there, you know, I’m playing a stunt man so I can’t… I gotta be on the better end of shape. So, you know, I try to eat right during the film. Get some exercise. And, that’s that.
That’s that. And then when it’s off, then it’s Shake Shack and pizzas. (laughter)
Hollywood is teeming with thousands of stuntmen, many of them also dreaming of becoming a star someday. So, in that context, in portraying Cliff, THE STUNTMAN, what are your own reflections on fame, how fleeting it can be, and how, for every Cliff, there are hundreds who are struggling to make it in Hollywood?
The 35th Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) presented its highest honor, the Maltin Modern Master Award (established in 1995, and then re-named to recognize long-time renowned film critic Leonard Maltin in 2015), to actor Brad Pitt at the Arlington Theatre on January 21st. The award was created to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry, and the evening was a celebration of his work, not only in his two most recent films, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and Ad Astra, but also his entire film catalog.
During the two-hour presentation, featuring clips from many of Pitt’s films, and discussion with Maltin, himself, the actor talked in-depth about everything from his first Oscar nomination, his major in college, growing up as a film buff, his first impression of a professional film set, his unsuccessful first attempt at getting a SAG card, when he felt like he was actually a professional working actor, the filmmakers that have made the greatest impact on him, one of the film roles that he passed on, and a common theme in many of his roles.
“I swear to God, I had to hide a tear,” Brad Pitt says, looking over at Quentin Tarantino and Leonardo DiCaprio, remembering the first time Tarantino played him the José Feliciano cover of “California Dreamin’” on the set of “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” “Look,” Pitt continues. “I’m not ashamed to say it. I got a little misty.”
We’ve settled onto a couple of sofas inside a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont because … where else would we meet to talk about Tarantino’s wistful elegy to a bygone Hollywood? As the song declares, it’s a winter’s day, though the (palm tree) leaves are green, not brown, and the sun setting just beyond the swimming pool is making the sky periwinkle blue, not a dismal gray.
But otherwise, yeah, we’re California dreamin’, sitting back, talking about a movie that earned 10 Oscar nominations — three for Tarantino as a director, writer and producer, and acting nods for DiCaprio and Pitt — and also considering the good fortune that has graced their lives over the last few decades.
“You know, when I first moved out here, it was the summer of ’86 and I didn’t know [expletive]-all about Los Angeles, other than what I’d seen on ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ and ‘Dragnet,’” Pitt says. “I landed in Burbank at a house I could crash at for a month or so. It was just me and a maid from Thailand who couldn’t speak English. Man, I was just so up for the adventure, and so excited when I’d drive by a studio where they make movies. It meant the world to me.”
• x003 LA Times
Fresh off his Golden Globes win for his role in Quenin Tarantino’s film. Once Upon a time in Hollywood, iconic America actor Brad Pitt sat down with New Europe’s Federico Grandesso while the latter was in Venice to promote the science fiction film Ad Astra, his most, and a collaboration with director James Gray.
NEW EUROPE (NE): What’s your feeling about the major success of Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?
BRAD PITT (BP): Well, that the movie was well-received by the critics and audiences alike, and has made a huge earning at the US box office, was expected. I think it’s great. It’s big for a Quentin film that it could still land like that. I think it was the only original content released over last summer that is neither a sequel nor based on a comic book or something like that. So, it’s no small feat. It says a lot that the studios can still gamble on films like his. I’m really pleased for it because the film was well-suited to my taste, of course.
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