A Film by Jake Paltrow.
For The New York Times magazine.
Question: what were the first movies that had a profound impact on you?
Brad Pitt: The first film I remember was at the drive-in. I would have been in kindergarten and it was Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. What we would do is – big night for the family – we would go to the drive-in and sit on the hood of the car – it was in the summer – you would bring popcorn and kool-aid cause there wasn’t much money at the time.
And I remember watching this film and the fact that they both were killed at the end was a real crusher for me. I don’t know, there was something about the injustice of that moment, for me. And I remember starting to tear up and I could not let my dad see that. So I had to roll over and fake something else but I’m sure they clocked it. Of course we would never talk about that kind of thing.
The whole drive-in experience was a thrill. You’d see a movie projecter projecting into out of space so it stuck in
me.