Brad Pitt talks about the Tree of Life

If you’ve been wondering what Brad Pitt’s been up to post-Basterds, he’s a part of TREE OF LIFE, a drama by Terrence Malick premiering at Cannes this year. Empire recently caught up with Pitt and got a few brief words out of him regarding the project, which he calls “a bit ambitious.”

“Well, in a way. It’s this little tiny story of a kid growing up in the 50s with a mother who’s grace incarnate and a father who’s oppressive in nature. So he is negotiating his way through it, defining who he’s gonna be when he grows up. And that is juxtaposed with a little, tiny micro-story of the cosmos, from the beginning of the cosmos to the death of the cosmos. So that’s where the sci-fi – or the sci-fact – comes in.”

Oh so it’s the life and death of the entire cosmos? What’s ambitious about that? Child’s play!

Pitt elaborates on how he got involved with the project:

Pitt also confirmed that Heath Ledger was originally set for a role in the film. “He was gonna do it at one point, and then he was puling out for one reason or another, and we were involved [“we” meaning Pitt’s production company Plan B], so I just stepped in.”

Aside from those two bits, there’s not much to know about the project, as director Malick is notoriously secretive about his work. But once the thing hits Cannes, we’ll see how the buzz breaks down.