Brad Pitt claims it is “exhausting” to embody stereotypical masculinity off-screen
Brad Pitt, is currently facing multiple lawsuits filed against him by his ex-wife Angelia Jolie, who has accused the actor of physically assaulting her and their children. Yet, in a recent interview with The Financial Times, Pitt discussed the “exhausting” pressures of performing masculinity, claiming that he doesn’t want to be like veteran stars such as Clint Eastwood.
He said: “It’s exhausting to be anything but who you are. You have to understand, at least where I grew up, we’re more the Clint Eastwood character: you hold everything within, you’re capable, you can deal with anything, you don’t show weakness. I see that in my dad and the older generations of actors, and man, it’s exhausting.”
Pitt also shared: “As I get older, I find such a comfort in friendships where you can be [completely yourself], and I want that to extend in the outer world. What people make of it: I’m fine. I feel safe here because there’s a focus on our struggles as human beings because it’s fraught with peril. And joy as well.”
The actor discussed his friendship with Australian musician Nick Cave, who scored the controversial Pitt-produced Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde earlier this year. The pair recently debuted their sculptures in a joint exhibition in Finland. Pitt said: “I find I have to walk with the pain I experience, and I have to walk with the joy, the beauty. Our mutual misery became comic, and out of this misery came a flame of joy in my life. I always wanted to be a sculptor; I’d always wanted to try it.”
Pitt has described his relationship with art as part of a healing process. “I was looking at my own life and really concentrating on owning my own shit: where was I complicit in failures in my relationships, where have I misstepped. For me, it was born out of ownership of what I call a radical inventory of self, getting really brutally honest with me, and taking account of those I may have hurt.”
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