You know you’re really somebody when Kanye likens himself to you. “Start a fight club, Brad Reputation,” he sings on “Bound 2”, one of the best tracks off Yeezus. Although, Brad Pitt probably already knew he was somebody before Kanye let him know. But it helps.
Pitt turns 50 today, and if he were an actress not named Meryl, he would most surely be afraid for his career. But he is Brad Pitt, luckily, so he can still play the lead in action movies like World War Z. Pitt is one of Hollywood’s most reliable and beloved stars, someone with tremendous acting chops who also plays the whole fame game masterfully, and does his fair bit of philanthropy on the side. He’s pretty hot, too.
Although he has recently showed a keener interest in producing through his production company, Plan B Entertainment, he is still Brad Pitt the actor. In 2013, he was the lead in World War Z, which had a terribly troubled production but was guided carefully by Pitt and ended up grossing well over $500 million worldwide. He also had a smaller role in Ridley Scott’s polarizing film, The Counselor, and a divisive cameo in Steve McQueen’s heralded 12 Years a Slave as Samuel Bass, a Canadian laborer who opposes slavery.
Next year, he will play the lead in David Ayer’s World War II drama, Fury, as an army sergeant in charge of a tank and its five-man crew (which also includes Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña and Logan Lerman) on a dangerous mission in Nazi Germany. He will also produce True Story, a drama with James Franco and Jonah Hill, and the HBO film The Normal Heart, which is based on Larry Kramer’s play and stars Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts. He will also act as an executive producer for Resurrection, the American remake of the acclaimed French TV series The Returned.
Anyway, we all know that Brad Pitt is a busy man, especially when you take into account his family life with Angelina Jolie and their six children, and whatever it is he and George Clooney probably do on weekends. He is one of our most talented and versatile actors working today, and we are lucky to have him, even when he shows up for terrible cameos in otherwise superb films.
Other birthdays today:
- Steven Spielberg (67)
- Ray Liotta (59)
- Leonard Maltin (63)
- Katie Holmes (35)
