Many of us who have followed the movie career of Brad Pitt, going back to Thelma and Louise in 1990, have seen him as a real character actor cursed with Robert Redford, movie-star good looks. I am sure it’s been challenging for him to break out of that. Redford had a brand that he seemed happy to protect in the roles he chose. Not that it made him any less watchable – Redford was a bankable A-List actor who starred some of the great films of the 1970s.
I remember reading something in 1990 about Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear, where Redford was up for the role of Sam Bowden, the husband, terrorized by Robert De Niro’s Max Cady character. Redford turned it down, with the role going to Nick Nolte. Watching the movie we could see why he turned it down, if shielding the brand, or his meal ticket, was the over-riding priority. For anyone who hasn’t seen Scorsese and De Niro’s version of Cape Fear, raw and brutal, that role ran counter to the Redford brand. But as a moviegoer we wish Redford had changed his mind and taken the role. It would have been an interesting twist in his career.
Brad Pitt: One of Hollywood’s Great Character Actors?
Pitt has tried hard to run in the other direction from the pretty boy stereotype. You have to respect him for that. Even at 60, he’s running hard. The preview for his new movie, F1, is out, and if the first spoonful is any indication, it looks really good. F1, the Apple Original Film, in partnership with F1 and Warner Bros Pictures, will be in theaters June 25 internationally.
Top Gun: Maverick‘s Joseph Kosinski directed it. And there’s a cast led by Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, and British actor Damson Idris, playing Pitt’s rookie teammate on the fictional F1 team APXGP. Pitt plays a driver, Sonny Hayes, “a gambling junkie who missed his shot … the best that never was,” who returns to F1.
The cockpit action scenes look fabulous. The scenes shot at the Las Vegas Grand Prix last fall stand out in that preview. It has an A-Team of actors (curious to watch Condon, who was so great in The Banshees of Inisherin). I remain pleasantly surprised at how good Top Gun: Maverick was, so I have a lot of stock (as Bill Simmons likes to say) right now in Kosinski. And legendary Hans Zimmer is behind the soundtrack. Here’s hoping Pitt has some gas left in the tank still.
I am a 50-something Torontonian who loves everything about my city. It’s been my home, my playground, for my entire life. I went to school here. I met my wife here. I own real estate here. I love writing about the transformation of my city on the world stage, which hasn’t been anything short of dramatic. That continues on, as I write this. I write on the real estate scene. I write on travel and fashion. I like following the world of luxury watches.
But I love writing about cars – check that, luxury cars, a level of superior, engineering sophistication, high performance and style, that transports you not just from one destination to another but also out of whatever you are going through on a particular day, whatever mood you are in, all to another head space. It’s complete and total exhilaration, head to toe.
Check out my stories, and email me direct at mkeast@regardingluxury.com
