Nearing 50, Pitt knows clock is ticking

By JAKE COYLE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The face is hardly wrinkled and the long blond locks appear unchanged, but Brad Pitt, who will turn 49 in December, is increasingly preoccupied with the passage of time and the thought that his rarefied place in movies is fleeting.

It’s been more than 20 years since Pitt broke out as the heartthrob of “Thelma & Louise.” While nothing has diminished his status as one of the few genuine movie stars on the planet, Pitt says he’s working as if an expiration date lurks.

“I’m definitely past halfway,” says Pitt. “I think about it very much as a father. You just want to be around to see (your children) do everything. If I have so many days left, how am I filling those days? I’ve been agonizing over that one a bit like I never have before.”

But that sense of urgency has helped fuel some of Pitt’s best, most daring work, including his new film, “Killing Them Softly.” Pitt plays a hit man operating in a shabby underworld of image-conscious gangsters.

See the movie review and trailer for “Killing Them Softly.”

Brad Pitt earned heartthrob status in 1991′s “Thelma and Louise”

It’s almost surprising how few blockbusters Pitt has starred in over the last decade. Instead, he’s gravitated toward working with revered directors like Terrence Malick (“Tree of Life”) and the Coen brothers, and shaping his opportunities by producing them. More often than not, he’s sought to downplay his glamor, a track begun with David Fincher’s “Fight Club,” and more character actor roles than most leading men would dare (his Nazi-killing lieutenant in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”). Even in last year’s performance as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane in “Moneyball” (for which he landed his third Oscar nomination), Pitt deliberately played it low-key.

“Life is more interesting,” says Pitt. “I enjoy the fantasy; I enjoy when everyone wins. I just don’t contribute to that idea very well, for better or worse. There’s something subversive in my Christian upbringing or something, my mid-America upbringing. That irreverent urge that makes you want to yell or fart during the Benediction in church. I just can’t help it.”