When Will Brad Pitt Win An Oscar?

I don’t usually write about specific actors, but this actor I feel is worthy of discussion.  In my opinion, Mr. Brad Pitt is one of the best actors of this generation but never seems to get the honor he really deserves; an Oscar.  In 1996, Brad Pitt was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for, “12 Monkeys” but lost to Kevin Spacey for, “The Usual Suspects” a HUGE snub in my opinion.  I think “The Usual Suspects” is very over rated but that’s a different article for a different day.  Then, in 2009, Pitt got his first Best Actor Nomination for, “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” but lost to Sean Penn for “Milk” (Right call in my opinion). In 2011, Pitt got the Best Actor Nomination again for the fantastic film, “Moneyball” and lost to Jean Dujardin.  Hey, it happens; but it happens to Brad Pitt A LOT.  I’m waiting for Mr. Pitt to accept an Oscar for a career that really has had very few poor films and rarely, even if there is a poor film, is it due to Pitt.  If you read the man’s filmography, he has done at least a dozen great films and no real stinkers.  

Look at “Se7en” directed by David Fincher.  When Pitt first got that script, he read three pages of it and put it down.  A friend of his talked him into reading the script all the way through. (You can hear the whole story on “Inside the Actor’s Studio”.)  He didn’t want to do the same cop film we had seen a million times before, which shows he cares about what films he makes and the characters he plays.  The other reason I bring this up is because a lesser actor could have easily made the character of Mills just what Pitt wanted to avoid, a generic character that we have seen a million times before.  In “Se7en”, Pitt pulls off lines in a dark film that will make you laugh.  For example, “Just because he has a library card doesn’t make him Yoda.”  This line is in reference to a serial killer on the loose, but we laugh.  The character portrayed is multi-layered - Mills the cocky cop, Mills the family man and Mills the broken man at the end of the film.  The “WHAT’S IN THE BOX,” scene in my opinion is an Oscar worthy scene on its own.  The glazed look in Pitt’s eyes when the film ends, is heart breaking.

The list goes on.  In “A River Runs Through It”, he plays a brother who can’t get himself out of trouble but has no problem getting into it.  We would think this is an easy role to pull off and maybe it is, but Pitt raises the bar.  He uses his charisma and charm making you worry about the character.  He creates relationships with the character’s brother and father that feel REAL on every level.  So, we care and cry about events that are never shown on screen near the end of the film.  In the film “Inglourious Basterds”, he plays an unorthodox Nazi Hunter.  This character could easily have been overacted and become one of the most annoying characters in film history, but not with Pitt in the role.  He creates interest with an accent that is SO out of the box, it’s loveable.  It’s also something he has never done.  There aren’t many actors that can spew out Tarantino dialogue.  It’s more like singing an Opera than speaking lines but that twang and arrogance that Pitt brings to the character makes us go along for the ride without question.  

“Fight Club” is an amazing film where he plays a man who runs an underground fight club.  The line, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can” doesn’t make much sense in reality, but the character of Tyler Durden makes it real and Brad Pitt makes Tyler Durden real.  This was also somewhat of a departure for Pitt.  He plays a character who, at his core, is just a nut case and a pretty bad dude.  So why do we care about a nut case and all the pain that he feels, the punches he takes and antics he goes through in his day to day life?   The reason IS because Brad Pitt is playing a nut case and doing it so well, it’s at times uncomfortable.  We are intrigued by this but the actor has to keep you invested to bring the intrigue.   Pitt has fully immersed himself in the role and is no longer anything but that character.  In “The Devil’s Own”, Pitt plays a terrorist IRA gunrunner living in the United States with a New York City police officer.  What makes that role special is Pitt brought out the character’s passion for his home and the brutal, open honesty and emotion of what the man believes in… where his moral core is coming from.  We feel what the character feels and we see things from his point of view.  The role is played so well that we are rooting for this guy.  That honesty and raw emotion makes us sympathize and rationalize what this man is doing and see life from his perspective.  It also doesn’t hurt that he does a Northern Irish accent pretty damn well.  In “The Devil’s Own”, there is a scene in a church at a Confirmation ceremony with a long shot of Pitt’s eyes and you feel like you are looking into the character’s soul and feeling all he feels - the pain, the sorrow, the regret and the passion for his cause.  At least I felt that way.

The aforementioned mentioned “Moneyball” is another film that has many shots of Pitt’s eyes whereby you know exactly what the character is feeling.  That shows the caliber of Brad Pitt’s talent.  You feel what the character feels just by seeing the look in his eyes.  I never feel like I am watching Brad Pitt the movie star on the cover of magazines.  I feel like I’m in a world with a man I have never met before and I am invested.  The man’s love of his craft and the talent he has makes you care about these characters.  Every single time he steps on screen, he is no longer Brad Pitt. 

What I am saying by rattling this list of a few of the characters Pitt has played, is the guy NEVER (with the exception of the “Ocean’s” films) plays the same character twice.  He’s not someone who can be type cast.

I’m sure you are all sitting at home saying, “Tons of actors can do this. It’s not just Brad Pitt.” The sad truth is not as many actors as you would think can do this type of work and some of the actors that can, choose not to.  For example, look at Tom Cruise.  Tom Cruise is a very talented actor but he doesn’t take roles anymore that hold much emotional weight.  He does his action movies and puts great effort into them but the big emotional films like, “A Few Good Men” or “Born On The 4^th Of July” or even “Jerry Maguire” aren’t coming out anymore and let’s face it the man can’t do accents to save his life.  I mean did you see “Far And Away”?  Another example I would throw out there is Matt Damon.  I love a lot of Damon’s work but I don’t think it’s at the caliber of Pitt’s.  “Good Will Hunting” and “The Departed” are probably the only two films I would put in the same category as the majority of the films I listed from Brad Pitt and the real emotional storyline in “The Departed” revolves around Leonardo DiCaprio’s character (who is not quite at Pitt’s level yet. That being said, he’s getting there very quickly.)  Matt Damon is a great actor but he doesn’t evoke the same emotion that Pitt does, not since “Good Will Hunting”.  Damon seems to be another extremely talented actor to jump on the action train.  Not to the same extent as Cruise, but he’s heading in that direction.  The actors that are doing what Pitt does would be guys like Christian Bale, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.  These men are actors that hold you by the throat and don’t let go until the film is over; but guess what?  Those men all have an Oscar to show for it.  Brad Pitt still does not.

-George McCann