Brad Pitt Says ‘My Personal Life Is Always in the News' and It's an ‘Annoyance' to Deal With While Filming: ‘It's Always Been' a ‘Nagging Time Suck'
'My personal life is always in the news,' Pitt told the publication about filming movies amid public scrutiny. 'It's been in the news for 30 years, bro. Or some version of my personal life, let's put it that way.'
More from Variety
Brad Pitt to Star in A24's 'The Riders' Adaptation From 'Conclave' Director Edward Berger
Tom Cruise Says He and Brad Pitt Would 'Go Drive Go-Karts All Night' During Breaks From 'Interview with the Vampire': 'He's a Very Good Driver'
David Fincher to Direct Brad Pitt in 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' Netflix Follow-Up From a Tarantino Script
When asked if filming 'F1' acted as a 'refuge' from all the public attention around his personal life, Pitt responded: 'It's been an annoyance I've had to always deal with in different degrees, large and small, as I do the things I really want to do. So, it's always been this kind of nagging time suck or waste of time, if you let it be that. I don't know. I don't know.'
'Mostly I feel pretty… My life is fairly contained,' Pitt added. 'It feels pretty warm and secure with my friends, with my loves, with my fam, with my knowledge of who I am, that, you know, it's like this fly buzzing around a little bit.'
GQ then asked Pitt directly if there is 'relief' now that he is 'on the other side of the divorce finally being finalized,' to which the Oscar winner answered: 'No, I don't think it was that major of a thing. Just something coming to fruition. Legally.'
Pitt and Jolie settled their divorce on Dec. 30, 2024 after eight years of legal disputes. Jolie's lawyer, James Simon, said in a statement at the time: 'More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr. Pitt. She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr. Pitt, and since that time she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family. This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago. Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.'
The once-Hollywood power couple were at the center of global headlines in 2016 when an alleged physical altercation between them occurred on a private plane. Pitt allegedly 'choked' one of his children, 'struck another in the face' and 'grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her,' per Jolie's lawsuit against Pitt. She filed for divorce a few days after the alleged incident.
In April 2024, Jolie's lawyer filed a claim that alleged Pitt's physical abuse 'started well before' the 2016 incident. Pitt had accused Jolie in 2022 of violating 'contractural rights' when she sold her half of their Château Miraval winery without his knowledge. Jolie's lawyers fired back at Pitt in their countersuit, accusing him of not allowing Jolie to sell her half of the winery unless she signed 'a nondisclosure agreement that would have contractually prohibited her from speaking outside of court about Pitt's physical and emotional abuse of her and their children.'
With his personal life seemingly on more stable ground and 'F1' arriving in theaters across the world in late June, Pitt seems reinvigorated as an actor. The Oscar winner sparked retirement rumors in 2022 when he said he was on the 'last leg' of his acting career, although he later clarified that still meant he had many years left to explore his craft. 'F1' proved to Pitt that retirement is certainly not imminent.
'Man, I've been doing this for a while and was wondering: Do I have more stories to tell? Do I have anything to add to this? Is there still any excitement I can find from this?' Pitt told GQ. '[This film] just reinvigorated the whole thing again for me.'
Pitt's acting career will continue not only with 'F1' this summer but also future film projects such as 'Heart of the Beast,' a Navy SEAL drama that reunites the actor with his 'Fury' director David Ayer, and a 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' sequel in which Pitt will reprise his Oscar-winning role of Cliff Booth for director David Fincher and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino.Best of Variety
'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts?
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Geek Tyrant
12 minutes ago
- Geek Tyrant
Genndy Tartakovsky Opens Up on the Long Road to Netflix's R-Rated Animated Comedy Fixed: 'I Was Going to a Dark Place' — GeekTyrant
After 16 years in development, Genndy Tartakovsky's wild and raunchy, R-rated animated comedy Fixed is finally landing on Netflix this week. The film is about a dog on a frantic quest to have one last hurrah before an inevitable trip to the vet where he'll be nutered. The movie has been winning laughs at screenings like Annecy and Montreal's Fantasia Festival. But for Tartakovsky, getting here was a marathon filled with stops, starts, and moments of real doubt. Best known for directing the first three Hotel Transylvania films and creating adult-oriented hits like Samurai Jack and Primal , Tartakovsky has been chasing this project since 2008. Back then, he pitched the idea to Sony Pictures Animation not as a dog-neutering comedy, but as a story about a group of friends. Tartakovsky explained: 'It started with having a group of high school friends… we make each other laugh like no one else. I wondered if I could take our dynamic, exaggerate it, caricature it and translate it into animated animal characters and make a movie about relationships.' The 'neutering' hook came to him mid-pitch, lightning strike style. 'I go, 'What if one of them is a dog and he finds out he's going to get neutered in the morning?' And that was it. The whole room laughed, and they bought the pitch.' The final film follows Bull, voiced by Adam Devine, who learns he's scheduled for surgery the next morning after one too many run-ins with his owner's grandma. His friends include Idris Elba as tough-talking Rocco, Fred Armisen as wannabe influencer Fetch, and Bobby Moynihan as goofy Lucky, and they rally to give him one last great night, with Bull's dream girl Honey (voiced by Kathryn Hahn) as his ultimate goal. While Tartakovsky originally envisioned Fixed for the big screen, the road to get it made was a twisted one. Studios wavered, rewrites piled up, and adult animation still wasn't a big market in 2008. Even after Warner Bros. planned a theatrical release for August 2024, the film was dropped during corporate cost-cutting. 'The business changed and then they didn't want to release it… I thought, well, we've got a finished movie, there's no questioning it anymore… and then nobody liked it, or rather… they didn't see it as a business.' When Netflix initially passed in 2024, things got bleak. 'I was going to a dark place… you start to question yourself. Did I make something I don't think I made? Are people seeing it differently than the way I see it?' The turnaround came in January when Netflix came back for the film. 'My understanding is that John Derderian, who runs Netflix series animation, saw the film, loved it and pushed it through.' Now, with Fixed premiering on the streamer, Tartakovsky sees it as a test for adult-oriented animated features in the U.S. 'Comedy is hard… adults are even harder because they're more judgy. If it's successful and opens the door for more of it, whether that's a sequel or something else that is R-rated, that would be incredible.' Despite the struggles, Tartakovsky remains passionate about pushing animation beyond the family-friendly formula. 'We have all these adult series, but features are pretty much this Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar, Marvel model… there are very few things that are different. We should be as different as live action.' Fixed is hand-drawn, unapologetically adult, and born from years of persistence, and it's finally ready to find its audience. For Tartakovsky, the journey wasn't just about getting a movie made, but about proving there's space for bold, unique animated storytelling. Source: Deadline
Gizmodo
12 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Ted Raimi Says a ‘Xena' Reboot Would Have to Take Inspiration From ‘Cobra Kai'
Growing up in the '90s, serialized heroines were big on the small screen with Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer—heck, even Sabrina the Teenage Witch. After Netflix's dark Sabrina reboot and the new Buffy in the works with Sarah Michelle Gellar returning to mentor a new chosen one, all we need now is to see Xena ride again. And that might be on the verge of happening. The cast and creative team behind Xena recently participated in an oral history of the show for Entertainment Weekly and had a lot to say when it came to a Xena revival. Star Lucy Lawless shared, 'Gotta tell you, I don't know why they haven't been able to do it. What I keep hearing is you have to do it as well or better than the original, and they keep feeling like it's not as good or better or totally different. It might need to be just totally different.' Co-star/director Bruce Campbell added, 'The themes are very relevant to today. Loyalty, friendship, complicated relationships. Xena said it's okay to have complicated relationships in an otherwise action-centered show.' Xena co-creator Rob Tapert elaborated on the true status of the reboot: 'We are trying to launch a new version of Xena. It would not be the story of Xena and Gabrielle with Lucy and Renee. It would be like they did with Star Trek, a reimagining of that universe. Whatever it's gonna be, it will be different, which is exciting. Thirty years later, it has to be different.' Ted Raimi, who was a staple on the show as Joxer, agreed. 'You'd have to completely rethink it,' he explained. And the creative team, which collaborated on the original Evil Dead films, hopes to do something different. 'To do it well, in my opinion, you'd have to do it brilliantly like what the Karate Kid did with Cobra Kai. Which is, they're just older and it's a whole new bunch of problems they have. Because there's no way that anyone would wanna see me at my age jumping around and doing those goofy faces. If you redid it in that way, I think that it could be done.' Tapert added insight toward the current direction they plan to go in, which is more cinematic. 'But for a feature, now 30 years on, I'm interested in doing that,' he revealed. 'I don't know when and where it is, but they're gonna see a script somewhere in the next three to six months, and one can only hope.' Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
USA Today
42 minutes ago
- USA Today
Mark Rober, kid-friendly engineer, to experiment with new Netflix show
Former NASA engineer Mark Rober, who has a huge following among children, is headed to Netflix to share his experiments and host a competition show in 2026. Netflix announced the plans on Monday, Aug. 18. Rober is the leader of CrunchLabs, a team of engineers and creators based in Northern California. He has over 70 million subscribers on YouTube and over 11 million followers on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook combined. His past experiments include one that tested the limits and reaction times of self-driving cars and another in which he built a roller coaster in his lab. His high-energy videos include nods to characters popular among kids, such as Phineas from Disney's "Phineas and Ferb." In one video he shared in June, he reached out to Phineas to ask for help throwing a birthday party for a kid named Ethan. "I can explain later," Rober said, video chatting with the animated character Phineas. "For now, I need to know if you've got any ideas." In addition to being a former NASA engineer, Netflix said, Rober is also a social media star, teacher, inventor and philanthropist. Engineer's lab will produce the competition show airing in 2026 Rober's lab, CrunchLabs, will produce his new kids and family competition show, along with Jimmy Kimmel's production company, Kimmelot. 'I love turning learning into a game, basically hiding the vegetables in the dessert, and now it's a full-on competition game show!' Rober said in the news release. 'When you're having fun, you're learning without even realizing it. And teaming up with Netflix and Jimmy Kimmel to make this happen? This is gonna be epic!' Kimmel, whose company is co-producing the show, said he's excited as well. 'My kids love Mark Rober, and so do their parents,' said Kimmel, who has had Rober on his show before. 'Mark's videos are so clever and inventive, it's easy to forget that they're educational, too. We can't wait to introduce one of the best and brightest creators to Netflix.' More news: You can catch Mercury's big light show. It's called the greatest elongation. Engineer's 'storytelling is infectious,' Netflix executive says Rober worked for NASA for nine years, Netflix said. He first went viral in 2011 with his Halloween costume made of two iPads. He used the iPads to make it look like he had a hole in his torso, Netflix said. Other experiments of his include glitter-bombing porch pirates or making boxes they steal explode with glitter when they open them. He's also created a pool of Jell-O and done an experiment that involved tossing an unhittable baseball. His lab also offers science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subscriptions that help kids, teens and adults do hands-on experiments, think critically, and create like engineers, Netflix said. John Derderian, Vice President of Series, Animation, Kids and Family at Netflix, said in the news release that his kids like the subscription boxes and Rober's work. 'His storytelling is infectious,' Derderian said in the release. 'When my son and daughter spot a new Build Box at our doorstep, we know that an amazing adventure awaits!' Rober shares his experiments on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@
