BRAD PITT BIOGRAPHY (Part 4)

The critics were disappointed by The Mexican's failure to play the Pitt-Roberts card. They weren't too keen on his next outing either, Spy Game. This saw him as the protege of retiring CIA spymaster Robert Redford - thus bringing together two generations of actors who had to battle against the effects of their own looks in order to gain respect. The movie begins with Pitt in a Chinese prison and Redford having 24 hours to save him. During the course of this fraught rescue mission, we flash back to see how an idealistic Pitt was recruited by Redford after Vietnam and how falling for a dodgy Catherine McCormack got him into this mess. It was intriguing stuff, but generally spoiled by director Tony Scott's insistence on super-snappy editing that did not allow any character to grow.

Now, in an odd subversion of his leading man status, Brad chose to join an ensemble cast for Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11, an update of the 1960 Rat Pack flick. This saw George Clooney as Danny Ocean, gathering a team of crack crooks to turn over a Vegas casino. Brad would play his trusty sidekick Rusty Ryan who, while casing the joint, notices that casino boss Andy Garcia is going out with Ocean's former wife (Julia Roberts, again). Could emotional stuff be getting in the way? Of course, it does, adding extra enjoyment to one of the slickest and smartest crime movies of recent times.

After this huge hit, Pitt would not be seen on screen for another three years, other than cameos for his new buddies Soderbergh and Clooney. First, alongside a host of stars including Roberts and his fomer Johnny Suede cohort Catherine Keener, he popped up in Soderbergh's $2 million budget Full Frontal, a cinematic curio of films within films within films. Deep in there would be Brad, appearing mostly on mag covers and playback video, playing a superstar playing a tough cop in a new movie. Full Frontal would be attacked as a major indulgence on the part of Soderbergh and his cast, with only Pitt escaping criticism. It was noted that he was the least actorly and pretentious of them, and more than willing to send himself up, as was Seven's director David Fincher, who here fawned over Pitt very amusingly.

The next cameo would see Brad playing it for laughs once more, in Clooney's Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, written by Charlie Kaufman and based on the cult memoirs of Chuck Barris, a game show host who claimed to have also been an assassin for the CIA. Working for free, Pitt would pop up in a flashback to an episode of TV show The Dating Game, where hopefuls would choose from three prospective spouses. Brad, and his Ocean's 11 co-star Matt Damon, would naturally be turned down in favour of Bachelor Number 3. With Julia Roberts also putting in an appearance, it was the fourth time in two years these major stars had graced the same credit listing.

2003 would see Pitt lend his voice to the titular hero of the animated Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas. But this was just a prelude to a far more ambitious mythical epic, Wolfgang Petersen's $220 million Troy. Having consciously avoided starring roles that played up his looks, now Brad went the whole hog as Achilles, the elite warrior charged by King Agamemnon to lead the seige of Troy and win back the stolen wife of his brother Menelaus. Petersen pulled out the stops in making Pitt look like a Greek god. Pitt, on the other hand, never keen to pose when he could be acting, attempted to deepen his character by playing Achilles as an embittered man with a profound disrespect for authority and an unhealthy death wish. Even so, it was his titanic battle with Eric Bana's Hector that really stood out in a movie marked by its spectacular SFX.

Such was the scope of Troy that Pitt was forced to pull out of Darren Aronofsky's sci-fi epic The Fountain. Coincidentally, a severe pulling of his Achilles' tendon also put back the filming of a forthcoming effort, a return to Soderbergh and Clooney with Ocean's 12, where the old gang are forced by their original victim Andy Garcia to regroup and pull off three major European heists. This would not, though, be the main reason Pitt was so glaringly in the public eye throughout 2004. Instead, the tabloids were foaming at the mouth over the possibility that Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston was on the rocks. Rumours abounded that on the set of his next picture, Mr And Mrs Smith, an affair had begun with co-star Angelina Jolie, rumours that would not cease. And, come January, 2005, Pitt and Aniston would indeed split (they'd divorce the following October) with Pitt now being photographed increasingly often in Jolie's company. The coverage would reach absurd proportions, with one set of sneaked photos selling for over $500,000. Eventually, the couple would confirm that they were, indeed, an item. Come 2006, Pitt would officially adopt Jolie's two children, Maddox and Zahara. Just a few months later they would have a child of their own, Shiloh Nouvel, born in Namibia. He'd also join Jolie in her ambassadorial work for the United Nations, travelling to an earthquake-ravaged Pakistan and making enormous charitable donations.

The scandal would have no effect on Pitt's pulling-power at the box-office. Mr And Mrs Smith, where he and Jolie played a married couple who, unbeknown to each other, are both assassins, was hugely stylish and another big hit, raking in $186 million at the US box office. And Pitt's other interests would begin to flower, too. Ever more involved in architecture, he would join Frank Gehry on a project in Hove, England. He'd present a BBC Radio 2 documentary on the tragic folk singer Nick Drake. And Plan B Entertainment, the production company he'd set up with Aniston and friend Brad Grey, really took off. With Grey appointed CEO at Paramount, the company would see success with Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and have a further dozen projects on the go. Pitt's divorce settlement would see Aniston take the Hollywood mansion and Pitt take control of Plan B with Aniston maintaining just a small holding. From now on, Pitt would usually produce his own movies.

Onscreen, 2006 would bring two more offerings. First would be Babel, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, of Amores Perros and 21 Grams fame. This was a series of interconnecting stories, taking place over 36 hours on three continents, with Pitt and Cate Blanchett as an American couple on holiday in Morocco, recovering from the death of their new baby. It would be a testing role for Pitt, who had to deal convincingly with the death, with Blanchett being shot and their other children going missing in Mexico. And he'd carry it off, Babel being a big winner at Cannes. Next he'd take on another heroic historical role, this time appearing as the titular bandit in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford which, based on the novel by Ron Hansen, retold the famous western story through the eyes Casey Affleck's Ford, who joins the James gang then comes to resent Jesse's popularity.

Brad Pitt now chooses his parts carefully, clearly alternating between hero roles in blockbusters and more "interesting" fare. All he really needs now is for the diehard critics to finally accept that he's not just a screen stud. As he's said himself: "One, it's boring. Two, it's stupid. And three, it's death". Good luck to him - he deserves better.

Dominic Wills