VENICE, Italy — It’s been a very good year for Brad Pitt, who is in the five-star Excelsior Hotel to talk about Friday’s sci-fi epic “Ad Astra.”
“Ad Astra” follows his surprise summer hit, Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” with Oscar buzz for Pitt’s Cliff Booth, a veteran stuntman and stand-up guy.
Cliff chauffeurs his pal, a boozy fading TV star (Leonardo DiCaprio), and, despite rumors he killed his wife, emerges by film’s end to be a larger than life-sized hero.
“Hollywood” reminded people why Pitt, at 55, remains a star: He effortlessly mixes humor with a kind of almost mythic cool masculinity to memorable effect.
“Why do I think Cliff landed?” Pitt wondered aloud. “The Cliff character that Quentin wrote has a real easy-peasy approach to whatever is thrown his way. The universe isn’t against him and it’s got an extra element that’s more than a guy who can beat up the other guy.
“I hope it’s because of his approach of acceptance and ease with the world.”
“Ad Astra,” which Pitt’s Plan B company produced, is both intimate and spectacular, with Pitt an astronaut on a lonely space mission in search of his long-missing father.
“I was weaned on the great films of the ’70s and it’s still the bar for me. Those characters weren’t good or bad, they were human.
“These,” he noted, “are the stories I’m drawn to. ‘Astra’ is more complex than black and white. It’s a challenging film. It’s subtle and operating on many cylinders. And it has something to say about who we are — a soul if you believe in that.
“It asks, Why do we hang on? So I’m curious to see how it lands.”
For Pitt, “Ad Astra” is mostly a movie about notions of masculinity. “We grew up hearing being a man meant being respected.
“I grew up — my parents are pioneer stock — if you broke your elbow or cracked your head, you don’t complain and you don’t really acknowledge it.
“It’s the same with internal injuries, we don’t acknowledge it and that can keep you from really knowing yourself. It’s a barrier — this façade of strength and no weaknesses. A barrier to be with those you love, to be a better dad, a better friend to yourself.
“These were ideas we’re investigating.”
