Brad Pitt reveals his most humiliating job
Approaching graduation from the University of Missouri, where he studied journalism in the 1980s, Brad Pitt felt unsettled, sensing something more fulfilling on the horizon, specifically on the west coast. Having harboured a deep passion for cinema since his youth, Pitt viewed the enchanting world of film as “a portal into different worlds”. However, it was only in the final weeks of his tenure at college that he made the audacious choice to abandon his studies and embark on a journey to the alluring yet uncompromising Hollywood Hills.
“I grew up in Oklahoma and Missouri, and I just loved film,” Pitt told Backstage in 2012. “My folks would take us to the drive-in on summer nights, and we’d sit on the hood of the car. I just had this profound love for storytelling. I think it’s just an amazing thing we get to do. We’re so complex, mysteries to ourselves; we’re difficult to each other. And then here’s this storytelling that reminds us we’re all the same. I consider it such a privilege.”
“I was in college—I was studying advertising and graphic design at the University of Missouri,” Pitt recalled of his journey out west in a 1986 interview with Tiger Beat. “I told my parents I was going to California to go to art school. I didn’t tell them I wanted to act. I always wanted to give this a try on my own. When I got out here, I started to check things out, and I never made it to art school.”
Like most travelling students, Pitt was penniless and in need of a place to lay his head at night. Fortunately, he had some contacts to fall back on. “I knew this girl from home whose dad had a place out here. There was just a housekeeper living in it, so I got to say there free for a month,” he said.
“Then I got some guys—there were eight of us living in this little apartment in North Hollywood. It was a blast. We had no furniture—we all slept on the floor in the front room. We had a TV, a toaster oven and a stereo. What more does a guy need? We were all short on girlfriends and money!”
Fortunately, it didn’t take Pitt too long to get his first auditions and acting roles. However, in the interim, he took on a few odd jobs and even challenged his housemate to see who could source the most humiliating vocation.
“There is a place called the Job Factory, and every week they list all of these odd jobs,” Pitt told Tiger Beat. “Those jobs kept me in Cap’n Crunch and peanut butter and jelly. It finally got so bad that my buddy and I said let’s see who can get the most humiliating job. I won! I got a job with a restaurant called El Pollo Loco. I dressed up as a chicken, stood out on the corner of Sunset in one-hundred-degree weather and flapped my wings for the Grand Opening. They liked me so much they asked me back!”
In 1985 Pitt landed a small role on the longstanding soap opera Another World. His two-episode appearance was aired in May 1987. “I did a few weeks on Another World,” Pitt told Tiger Beat of his early breakout role. “I had to go to New York for that, and I had never been there. Then I got Dallas, and in between filming those, I did a Growing Pains episode. I did a Mountain Dew commercial—got to waterski in Florida. And I just got a McDonald’s commercial today! My mom is so proud!”
Towards the end of his conversation with Tiger Beat, Pitt was asked where he saw himself in ten years (1996). “In ten years, I’ll be 32,” he replied. “I hope I am married with some Brad Jrs. I would like to be in a position like Kevin Costner. He’s on top and respected as an actor. I just want to be a respected actor. I want to make people feel things like how I feel when I go to the movies. I would like to have my own production company.”
By 1996, Pitt was indeed a widely revered actor and had enjoyed successful roles in Thelma & Louise, Interview with the Vampire, Legends of the Fall, Se7en, and his success would only proliferate from there. His dream of owning his own production firm would have to wait several more years, but in 2001, the actor founded Plan B Entertainment alongside Brad Grey, Kristin Hahn and Jennifer Aniston.
Watch Brad Pitt in a clip from Another World below.
