Brad Pitt: Parenthood Influences Choices
United Press International
May 31, 2011
Actor Brad Pitt says being a father to six children has become the biggest influence in the choices he makes, whether professionally or personally.
The two-time Academy Award nominee also says worries about his kids' safety "keep me up at night" since their welfare has an added element -- the celebrity status he and partner Angelina Jolie enjoy, USA Weekend reported Sunday.
"We're hunted," Pitt told the newspaper in his first extended interview since 2009. "Our kids have to live behind a gate. Outside, there are people with cameras. But I'll take the trade-off. I never knew I was capable of experiencing so much love."
Pitt plays a father of three boys in 1950s Texas in his latest film, "Tree of Life," directed by the Terrence Malick, which opened in limited release last weekend.
Pitt, 47, said parenthood has become more central to his sense of self, affecting everything from the movies he chooses to make to his vision of the future with Jolie.
Although he has said in the past he and Jolie would wait to marry until same-sex marriages are legal, he now acknowledges the timetable may change.
"The kids ask about marriage," Pitt said of his children, ages 2 to 9 -- three adopted and three biological. "It's meaning more and more to them. So it's something we've got to look at."
Pitt told USA Weekend his family life -- spent at a Los Angeles compound, a 1,000-acre estate in southern France and movie sets internationally -- may seem "a bit extreme … [but] I like extremes. I guess I've always operated that way."
Despite the lifestyle, he and Jolie "do everything we can to carve out some semblance of normalcy for them, to re-create the kinds of moments that were special for us," Pitt said. "It's not unusual for the kids to be covered in paint. We have mud fights. It's chaos from morning until the lights go out, and sometimes after that."
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Copyright 2011 by United Press International
