You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your f*cking superhero movie. Brad Pitt — who has pretty much shied away from franchise fare despite being, you know, Brad Pitt — has urged young, up-and-coming actors to also avoid the urge to sign on for movies of that variety, suggesting doing so is a version of selling out.
Brad Pitt recently appeared on the New Heights podcast in promotion of F1, where he tried to give the next generation of Hollywood stars advice on how to navigate their careers. “I like watching what the new generation is coming in with. I like to see what they are up against and the way they negotiate and work their way through it. They enjoy it more. We were more uptight and it had to be about acting…like, you didn’t sell out, you didn’t sell out. But now it’s like, ‘We can be artists in many different arenas, so let’s do it and let’s enjoy it.’ But they also get caught up in you have to have a franchise or have to have a superhero. But I keep saying, ‘Don’t! Don’t! They’ll die.’”
True to nature, Brad Pitt – whether purposely or not – avoided doing any sequels or franchises early on, with any involvement coming late in his career (although we all know Cool World deserved its own cool “universe”). And lest you think Seven had a half-dozen movies before it, Brad Pitt didn’t get involved in a series until Ocean’s Eleven in 2001, which of course spawned an entire trilogy with a potential fourth on the way. There, too, is talk of an F1 sequel. As for superhero movies, Pitt did have a cameo in Deadpool 2, where he was actually first in talks to play the more substantial role of Cable.
Brad Pitt isn’t alone in his advice. Timothée Chalamet revealed a few years ago that Leonardo DiCaprio – who broke big just a couple of years after Pitt – told him to avoid hard drugs and superhero movies if he was going to be a success in the industry. It’s probably safe to say that worked out for Timmy…
