No, he’s not auditioning to play a billy goat. Instead, perhaps Brad Pitt has been sporting his long, scraggly beard to get into character for a new movie role: that of British explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, who disappeared in the Amazon in 1925.
But there are a couple of modern-day mysteries surrounding the story, too. First, a Paramount source says the film, called The Lost City of Z, doesn’t have a script yet and no date to start production has been set. In addition, Fawcett didn’t have a beard, but a handlebar moustache.
“There is no film-related explanation I can give you as to why [Pitt] has the beard,” the Paramount source tells PEOPLE.