Category: BP Press

Pitt sees his Lower 9th Ward homebuilding efforts as a model

Actor Brad Pitt didn’t have much experience with financing forgivable loans when he built his first home in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward in 2008.

But seven years later, Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation has gained worldwide attention for the eye-catching home designs and “green” building features — such as solar panels and rainwater collectors — that it has incorporated into a growing development for low-income residents seeking to return to the neighborhood.

“I walked into it blind, just thinking, ‘People need homes; I know people who make great homes. Let’s solve this problem of the inequality and low-income housing in a place that’s been ravaged by the environment,’ ” the 51-year-old Pitt said Friday in a telephone interview.

Although Pitt and his wife, actress Angelina Jolie, put their French Quarter mansion on the market earlier this year, he said they’re not planning to leave the city for good and may buy another home in time.

A decade after Katrina’s floodwaters destroyed more than 5,300 homes in a neighborhood once known for having the highest rate of black home ownership in New Orleans, Pitt’s efforts have paid off: His foundation has spent $26.8 million to build 109 homes in a 20-block area.

In part because of his efforts, the neighborhood has managed to bounce back somewhat, though slowly. It now has about 37 percent of its population before the storm — a lower figure than most other devastated parts of the city.

Though he said there’s still work to do, Pitt considers the Make It Right development to be an example of how to rebuild in a neighborhood that some city and federal officials had suggested should not be rebuilt at all in the storm’s aftermath.

He called it “an oasis of color, an … oasis of how to build with dignity for low-income housing, and I see it as a template for how we can build our cities and certainly our neighborhoods in other areas in the future.”

Read more. Also added to BP Press.


• x002 Magazines – The New Orleans Advocate.

Updates Updates Updates


• x033 12 Years a Slave: DVD Extra: A Historical Portrait
• x015 Hola

And lotsa other stuff, just check last uploaded at the BP Gallery.

I also updated BP Press last week with the latest interviews. Tried my best to type them all out. If I am missing any, please let me know.

Furthermore I am taking a look at all the subpages such as Brad & Projects and updating them all or making them easier on the eyes. Hope you enjoy them. If you think it is missing a focus, then yes, email me. I like to be as elaborate as possible.

Doug Pitt: Not easy to know but ‘the guy who will step in’

Doug Pitt, businessman and founder of Care to Learn, is not an easy man to get to know.

“He is just not a real outgoing guy,” says long-time friend Matt Miller. “His dad is that way. Doug can be seen as distant, disinterested, stand-offish. That is more of a personality thing. … And then you couple that with his life experiences.”

Those life experiences involve having Brad Pitt as an older brother. As a result, people give Doug screenplays for his brother to read. One man came to Doug’s business to ask why Doug and Brad had placed a microchip in his head. Others simply want to hover near the glow of reflected fame.

But there’s something about Pitt few people know, says Miller, a real estate developer who graduated with Doug Pitt from Kickapoo High School in 1985.

“Doug is kind of a bad ass. He is a tough guy,” Miller says. “He would not fight you. Well, he would if he needed to. But with all the charity work he has done — as polished as he has become — you might think you know him.

“He has a very strong sense of right and wrong,” Miller says. “That is one area where he is not bashful. If he ends up in a situation when there is a wrong being done — even if it’s a random situation where it’s being done to someone else — he is the guy who will step in.”

Douglas Mitchell Pitt, 48, stepped in to help his community back in 2007. It started when he was at a Springfield Chamber of Commerce meeting. He was astounded by stories he heard of children in poverty right in his hometown.

Read more & pics.

Mindfood

We chat to just married actor Brad Pitt about his new film Fury, being married to a Dame and on meeting the Queen.

There’s not much that can impress movie stars the likes of Brad and Angie, but it seems that royalty is in a league all of its own.

In New York City to promote his WWII drama, Fury, just days after Queen Elizabeth awarded Angelina with an honorary Dame title, Pitt couldn’t keep the smile off his face, recalling this most prestigious event.

“Well, that was just cool. Grand Dame Commander,” he says, shaking his head.
It was a family affair for the Jolie-Pitt’s at Buckingham Palace.

“It was a lovely day for our family, and we were offered the opportunity to meet (the Queen) afterwards and bring the kids in,” he laughs. “And to see the kids like that; I have never seen them that still and respectful in my whole life. And to see them bow and say ‘Your Majesty,’ and curtsy. It was an absolute delight and just a lovely day for us all.”

Read more. Thanks Gabriella.

Details magazine

We went behind the scenes of Brad Pitt’s Details magazine photo shoot, where the actor talked about his love of the outdoors and how he ranks himself as a parent.

“I’ve discovered I don’t suck at being a dad,” Brad, 50, told Details.

The father of six has traveled the world with his children Shiloh, Vivienne, Maddox, Zahara, Pax and Knox — plus their mom and recently wedded wife, Angelina Jolie. With such a large family, the Oscar winner has little time alone, but when he can get away, he gravitates towards the California Redwoods.

“I will always be most comfortable in the outdoors,” Brad told Details. “I grew up in the Ozarks … and I’m quite reverential when it comes to a tree.”

So much so that he had the height of the world’s largest sequoia — 311.4 feet — tattooed on his forearm.

Brad’s issue of Details hits newsstands October 28, and he can next be seen on the big screen when his WWII film Fury opens October 17.

Read more. Thanks Gabriella. And thank you Yukko for the pictures below!


• x013 Details November ’14 France.

Brad Pitt and Rachel Boynton Reveal the Backstory of African Oil Doc ‘Big Men’

Made over seven years and in partnership with Pitt’s production company Plan B, Boynton’s film tracks American oil company execs and African politicians as they negotiate a drilling deal that could benefit everyone except the local population.

On Wednesday night, following a Los Angeles screening of Rachel Boynton’s documentary Big Men — an edge-of-your-seat film that offers an unprecedented inside look at how American oil companies and African governments interact when oil is discovered in Africa — The Hollywood Reporter met up with Boynton and one of the film’s executive producers, Brad Pitt, to discuss how the project came together and what they hope people will take away from it.

Boynton spent seven years of her life making the film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, screened theatrically last year (unfortunately rendering it ineligible for Oscar consideration this year) and is now playing in select theaters across the nation.

It seems to be the hope of Boynton and Pitt — whose Plan B production company champions films of social value, such as this year’s best picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave — that Big Men will raise awareness and bring about reforms that will benefit the people of African nations who have heretofore rarely shared in the profits of the discoveries of oil within their borders.

Here is a transcript of our conversation.

Read more. Also added to BP Press.

There’s no fuel like the fury of the undead

Just ask Brad Pitt. He has spent weeks running on it, circling the globe, crashing movie theaters and introducing audiences to his mega-zombie thriller World War Z, in theaters today.

After years of being “drawn to the smaller, more intimate films,” like Tree of Life and Killing Them Softly, Pitt has done an about-face with World War Z. “It’s a monster of a film,” he says, made for two young zombie fans: his oldest boys with Angelina Jolie, Maddox, 11 and Pax, 9.

The popcorn flick hits theaters six months after its original release date, thanks to reshoots and a newly scripted ending. But if you were expecting Pitt to hedge about the sweat equity involved in finally releasing this morphing 3-D blockbuster, you’ve got the wrong man.

“Listen, I’m pretty proud of this film,” he says on a warm Los Angeles afternoon in May, dressed in black and hair tied back, those famous blue eyes twinkling. “I’ve really enjoyed especially this last six months, getting back in there and fixing it.”

More on that later. In War Z, Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator confronted by a raging worldwide pandemic of rabid zombies. This is apocalypse by extinction, and Lane is forced to leave his wife (the Globe and Emmy-nominated Mireille Enos) and two daughters to combat a threat multiplying by the hour.

Even among zombies, Gerry Lane might be the most relatable character Pitt has played in years: a father as tough as Bourne but fairly fallible, steadfast as Bond, yet hardly as skilled. “He’s someone who has special skills and has been in war zones, and crisis was his background. But at the same time he’s this everyman,” says director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace).

“Gerry Lane,” Pitt chuckles. “One of the worst names in film ever. It was appropriate. I don’t know why it’s appropriate. Gerry with a ‘G’. He’s the anti-action hero. It’s an anti-action hero name.”

Read more. Thanks Beetlebug.

Cast of Fury visits Fort Irwin

Actors Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Vance, director David Ayer, set coordinator Owen Thornton and co-producer Alex Ott from the movie, Fury, visited the National Training Center, June 26 – 28. This visit allowed the actors and crew to speak with Soldiers about their shared experiences and the intricacies of being a part of a tank crew.

Read more. Thanks also Nikki. Filming will take place in the UK and starts September, as far as I know.


• x032 June 26-28 – Visiting National Training Center – Fort Irwin, CA.

PS. Also spotted what seems to be a new tattoo for our Brad.
PS2. The BP Press Archive was updated by yours truly this week, along with the BP Media Archive (Talkshows ’13 & World War Z). More will get done this week.

Brad Pitt reveals why Jolie went public

Just hours before a Tuesday afternoon interview with USA TODAY, his partner Angelina Jolie revealed in a New York Times op-ed that she has undergone a double mastectomy and reconstruction after learning she carried the BRCA1 gene mutation, which doctors estimated gave her an 87% chance of developing breast cancer.

How is Pitt feeling? “I’m quite emotional about it, of course,” said the World War Z star. “She could have stayed absolutely private about it and I don’t think anyone would have been none the wiser with such good results. But it was really important to her to share the story and that others would understand it doesn’t have to be a scary thing. In fact, it can be an empowering thing, and something that makes you stronger and us stronger.”

Read more.

The Real Life of Brangelina

When I met Brad Pitt the day after Easter, he was so tired that he was perhaps more reflective than usual. He had just finished a week of spring break with his family. He had camped out with them the night before on his property north of Santa Barbara, and he had woken up, he said, too early, as well as too wet. They had slept in tents, four of his six children, along with two of their friends, and then he had gotten all of them in a van and driven them down to LA.

“Angie too?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Angie too.”

I told him that I’d met her a few years before, when I profiled her for Esquire. She was making a movie about the wife of the murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, and the thesis of my story was that while 9/11 was supposed to make us all better — a better country and a better people — it only worked for Angelina Jolie. The story has won a kind of immortality as “The Worst Celebrity Profile Ever Written,” and when I told that to Angelina Jolie’s partner, he at first laughed and said that he hoped Esquire would use that as the title of the profile I was writing about him. Then he got serious. “But you were right,” he said. “You were right, you were right. Angie is….the best person…..”

Read more. Tom Junod’s profile of Brad Pitt will appear in the June/July issue of Esquire, which is on newsstands at the end of the month.

Brad Pitt: America’s war on drugs is a charade, and a failure

Today, with very little effort, anyone can land in virtually any city in this country, and within a day or two, procure their drug of choice. Since declaring a war on drugs 40 years ago, the United States has spent more than a trillion dollars, arrested more than 45 million people, and racked up the highest incarceration rate in the world. Yet it remains laughably easy to obtain illegal drugs. So why do we continue down this same path? Why do we talk about the drug war as if it’s a success? It’s a charade.

The drug war continues because it is a system that perpetuates itself. On a local level, any time a bust is made, scarcity drives up prices and, of course, the profit potential. History has taught us that there is no shortage of opportunists willing to fill the void and so the cycle continues and rates of drug use and dealing remain unchanged while incarceration skyrockets.

Read more.