Is Brad Pitt the ultimate supporting actor?
If somebody looks like Brad Pitt and decides they want to become an actor, then it’s inevitable the industry would try to pigeonhole them as a leading man. After all, with an effortless screen presence, natural charisma, and insanely chiselled features, it’s almost as if he was created in a laboratory that was explicitly tasked with building the ideal Hollywood superstar from the ground up.
And yet, the evidence has stacked up over the course of his career that Pitt is simply better off as a supporting player, with many of his best and most memorable roles coming when he’s stealing scenes or ceding the spotlight to the principal players. With that in mind, it’s somewhat telling that of his eight Golden Globe nominations, his only two wins have come in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category.
Similarly, of his seven Academy Award nods, his two victories came for ‘Best Picture’ as a producer of 12 Years a Slave and his supporting turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, highlighting his status as both a powerhouse producer and phenomenal secondary talent. That’s not to say he can’t lead a movie on his own, but a myriad of attempts have ended up falling noticeably flat from a performative perspective.
Since breaking out in the early 1990s, Pitt’s name has been slapped front and centre on the likes of Legends of the Fall, Seven Years in Tibet, Meet Joe Black, Troy, World War Z, Allied, and War Machine to name a few. Of course, none of them are actively terrible films – and many of them were hugely successful – but neither the quality of the project itself nor his contributions to it set the world alight.
Of course, the argument could be made that he was billed first in David Fincher’s Seven and Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, both of which were unanimously well-received. On the other side of the coin, though, the roles of David Mills and Aldo Raine deliberately required the reining in of his star wattage and sacrificing any semblance of vanity in favour of crafting a performance that suited the screenplay and the movie’s tone.
When considering Pitt’s best and most memorable performances – including True Romance, Twelve Monkeys, Snatch, Fight Club, Babel, and the aforementioned Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – he either isn’t the name that comes first in the credits, or when he is, he’s happy to offer a lion’s share of the limelight to the characters and performers that surround him.
Even Pitt’s less-vaunted leading roles tend to come in features that intentionally dial down his superstar persona in favour of introspection and emotional believability, a sentiment that applies to Killing Them Softly and Ad Astra, among others. Reinforcing that notion, even The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Moneyball – which landed him his two Oscar nominations for ‘Best Actor’ – required Pitt to dial down his intrinsic A-list appeal to focus on character work.
Of course, it’s not as if Pitt has ever been actively disdainful of the good looks that first gained him attention and then propelled him headlong into a position near the top of the industry ladder that he’s occupied for going on 30 years, but his filmography displays more than enough proof that he’s more comfortable, consistent, and arguably better when the burden of carrying an entire picture isn’t placed directly on his shoulders.
As a household name, well-paid star, and proven producer, Pitt is one of the few names who can get virtually any green light project based on their involvement alone, whether in front of or behind the camera. Despite that, he’s only played two major leading roles since 2017, including the acclaimed box office bomb Ad Astra and the frivolously kinetic action extravaganza Bullet Train.
During that same period, he’s either lent support or made cameo appearances in Deadpool 2, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Lost City, and Babylon, while as a producer, he’s been involved with such rich and varied titles as Okja, If Beale Street Could Talk, Vice, She Said, Women Talking, and more besides.
When studios are offering him millions of dollars to headline a movie, then Pitt isn’t going to reject the notion outright because that’s the status he’s cultivated for himself. Conversely, his back catalogue as a supporting actor and producer outlines where his true loyalties as a student of cinema lie, and he’s become regarded as one of the best around at both of the latter disciplines because of it.
