Pitt was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri. From 1983 to 1987, he attended the University of Missouri but left the school before receiving his degree to relocate to California and pursue an acting career. Pitt first gained popularity as a charming villain in the movie Thelma & Louise after making small appearances on television and in movies. In the following years, he directed films including Legends of the Fall (1994), Interview with the Vampire, and A River Runs Through It. Then, in the gritty thriller Se7en (1995), Pitt played a police officer; in the fantasy film 12 Monkeys (1995), he played a crazy malcontent, for which he received a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination.
Movies released in the late 1990s and after
As the Irish Republican Army terrorist in The Devil’s Own (1997), the Austrian mountain climber Heinrich Harrer in Seven Years in Tibet (1997), the contemporary incarnation of death in Meet Joe Black (1998), and the underground boxer in Fight Club (1999), Pitt purposefully acted against type. Pitt married actress Jennifer Aniston in 2000. He starred in the comedic caper Ocean’s Eleven, which was about con artists, the following year. Due to its enormous popularity, the movie was followed by Ocean’s Twelve (2004) and Ocean’s Thirteen (2007). Pitt played the Greek hero Achilles in Troy in 2004.
Actress Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt starred together in the action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), leading to Pitt’s romantic involvement with Jolie. Pitt continues to contribute his skills to movies with a broad range of themes, such as the historical western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and the drama Babel (2006), which follow the lives of people from different origins as they collide. In 2008, Pitt showcased his flexibility by playing a dim-witted wannabe blackmailer in Burn After Reading, directed by the Coen brothers, and a guy who regresses in the heartfelt fantasy film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his chameleon-like performance in the latter picture.
Pitt played in the 2009 World War II thriller Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tar
antino, which followed a squad of Jewish American soldiers who were taught to assassinate Nazis in German-occupied France. In the animated movie Megamind the next year, Pitt voiced the superhero competitor of the film’s main antagonist. Terrence Malick portrayed a controlling father in 1950s Texas in his impressionistic drama The Tree of Life (2011). Pitt was then nominated for a second Oscar for best actor, this time for his portrayal of Billy Beane, the real-life general manager, in the baseball drama Moneyball (2011). The movie tells the story of how Beane used analytics to acquire less-known, less expensive players to put together winning teams with the Oakland Athletics. Later, in the crime drama Killing Them Softly (2012), Pitt played a mafia enforcer.
Pitt starred in supporting roles in the crime drama The Counselor (2013) and the 2013 film 12 Years a S
lave, which was inspired by the real tale of Solomon Northup, a free person of color who was abducted and sold into slavery in the middle of the 19th century. He portrayed an American army sergeant leading the surviving members of a destroyed battalion in the closing stages of World War II in the 2014 film Fury. The next year, Pitt and Jolie collaborated once more on the drama By the Sea, which she co-wrote and directed. In the 2015 black comedy The Big Short, which was based on the events of the 2008 financial crisis, he played a former investment banker with strong moral principles. Pitt played a Canadian intelligence agent in the 2016 World War II movie Allied, which
