In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pitt was involved in successive relationships with several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens (Head of the Class),[171] Jill Schoelen (Cutting Class),[171] andJuliette Lewis (Too Young to Die? and Kalifornia), who, at the age of 16, was ten years his junior when they started dating.[27] In addition, Pitt had a much-publicized romance and engagement to hisSeven co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, whom he dated from 1994 to 1997.[171]
Pitt met Friends actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000.[1][172] For years their marriage was considered a rare Hollywood success;[1][173] however, in January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced that they had decided formally to separate after seven years together.[172] Two months later Aniston filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.[174] Pitt and Aniston's divorce was finalized by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 2, 2005, legally ending their marriage.[174] Despite media reports that Pitt and Aniston have an acrimonious relationship, Pitt said in a February 2009 interview that he and Aniston "check in with each other", adding that they were both big parts of each others' lives.[175]
During Pitt's divorce from Aniston, his involvement with his Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie attracted vigorous media attention.[176] While Pitt denied claims of adultery, he admitted that he "fell in love" with Jolie on the set.[177] In April 2005, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazziphotographs emerged showing Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya; the pictures were construed in the press as evidence of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie.[178] During the summer of 2005, the two were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina".[179] On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child, thereby publicly acknowledging their relationship for the first time.[180]
In an October 2006 interview with Esquire, Pitt said that he and Jolie would marry when everyone in America is legally able to marry.[181] He reaffirmed his stance to Parade in August 2009,[182] and again to People in July 2011.[183] In February 2010, Pitt and Jolie successfully sued British tabloid News of the World for falsely reporting that they were separating, a story that had been widely picked up by credible media outlets.[184]
Pitt's sex appeal has been picked up by many sources including Empire, who named him one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history in 1995.[10] The same year, Pitt won People's Sexiest Man Alive, an accolade he won again in 2000.[2][157] Pitt appeared on Forbes's annual Celebrity 100 list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in 2006, 2007, and 2008, at No. 20, No. 5, and No. 10 respectively.[158][159][160] In 2007 he was listed among the Time 100, a compilation of the 100 most influential people in the world, as selected annually by TIME.[161] The magazine credited Pitt with using "his star power to get people to look [to where] cameras don't usually catch".[161] Pitt was again included in the Time 100 in 2009, this time in the Builders and Titans list.[162]
Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election,[163] in which he supportedJohn Kerry.[163][164] Later in October he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find," he said.[165] In support of this he endorsedProposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide federal government funding for stem-cell research.[166]
Starting in 2005, Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After confirming that Jolie was pregnant in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding the couple reached what Reuters, in a story titled "The Brangelina fever," called "the point of insanity".[4] To avoid media attention the couple flew to Namibia for the birth of their daughter Shiloh, "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ."[167]Similarly intense media interest greeted the announcement two years later of Jolie's second pregnancy; for the two weeks Jolie spent in a seaside hospital inNice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.[168]
In September 2008 Pitt donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage.[169] Pitt stated his reasons for the stance: "Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8."[170]
Pitt supports the ONE Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world.[131][132] He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current global health issues[133] and traveled to Pakistan in November 2005 with Angelina Jolie to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.[134] The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean.[135] In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region.[136] Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of "Not On Our Watch", an organization that tries to focus global attention and resources to stop and prevent genocides such as that in Darfur.[137]
Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture[138] and has narrated Design e2, a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design.[139] He founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2006, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.[140][141] The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services.[142][143] Pitt and philanthropistSteve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations.[144] The first six homes were completed in October 2008,[145] and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated.[146][147] Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept ofgreen housing as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.[148]
In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world.[149] The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders,[149] followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl.[150] According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006[151] and $3.4 million in 2007.[152] In June 2009 the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants.[153][154] In January 2010 the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.[155][156]
Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in Troy, and making a second appearance as Rusty Ryan, in the sequel Ocean's Twelve. He spent six months sword training before the filming of Troy, based on the Iliad.[87] An on-set injury to his Achilles tendon delayed production on the picture for several weeks.[88] With a total worldwide gross of $497 million, Troy remains Pitt's most commercially successful picture to date. The film earned $364 million outside the U.S. and $133 million domestically.[24][89] Stephen Hunter of The Washington Times stated that Pitt excelled at such a demanding role.[90] Ocean's Twelve earned $362 million worldwide,[24] and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described (by CNN's Paul Clinton) as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford."[91]
In 2005, Pitt starred in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife Jane Smith. The Star Tribune noted that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry."[92] Mr. & Mrs. Smith earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005.[93]
For his next feature film, Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama Babel (2006).[94] Pitt's performance was critically well-received, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said that he was credible and gave the film visibility.[95] Pitt later said he regarded taking the part as one of the best decisions of his career.[96] The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival[97] and was later featured at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.[98] Babel received seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations, winning the Best Drama Golden Globe, and earned Pitt a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe.[37]
Reprising his role as Rusty Ryan in a third picture, Pitt starred in 2007's Ocean's Thirteen.[99] While less lucrative than the first two films, this sequel earned $311 million at the international box office.[24] Pitt's next film role was as American outlaw Jesse James in the 2007 Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, adapted from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name.[100] Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival,[101] with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of Film Journal International,[102]and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival.[103] Although Pitt attended the festival to promote the film, he left early after being attacked by a fan who pushed through his bodyguards.[104] He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival.[105]
Pitt's next appearance was in the 2008 black comedy Burn After Reading, his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film received a positive reception from critics, with The Guardian calling it "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy",[106] noting that Pitt's performance was one of the funniest.[106] He was later cast as Benjamin Button, the lead in David Fincher's 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a loosely adapted version of a 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story follows a man who is born an octogenarian and ages in reverse,[107] with Pitt's "sensitive" performance making Benjamin Button a "timeless masterpiece," according to Michael Sragow of The Baltimore Sun.[108] The performance earned Pitt his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination,[109] as well as a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination,[37][110] all in the category for Best Actor. The film received thirteen Academy Award nominations in total, and grossed $329 million at the box office worldwide.[24]
Since 2008, Pitt's work has included a leading role in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, released in August 2009 at a special presentation at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.[111] Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France.[112] The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide,[24] and garnered generally favorable reviews.[113] The film received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations and seven MTV Movie Award nominations, including Best Male Performance for Pitt.[114][115] He voiced the superhero character Metro Man in the 2010 animated feature Megamind.[116] Pitt appeared in Terrence Malick's drama The Tree of Life, co-starring Sean Penn, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[117] He has signed on to appear as a British explorer searching for a mysterious Amazonian civilization in The Lost City of Z, based on David Grann's 2009 book of the same name.[118] In a performance that attracted strong praise, he portrayed the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the drama Moneyball, which is based on the 2003book of the same name written by Michael Lewis.[119] Moneyball received six Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Pitt.[120]
