Brad Pitt appears on the cover of the October/November issue of Interview Magazine. I’m including some of the more interesting shots from the Steven Klein pictorial – you can see the slideshow here. I guess the theme of the shoot is “Brad playing weird characters” – like, a Rastafarian, a dandy with a little mustache, a beer-drinking rock dude, a guy with an eye patch, etc. My favorites are the beer-drinking rock dude pics. This is Brad’s first major interview in support of Killing Them Softly, his new mobster film directed by his Jesse James director, Andrew Dominic. The interview is decent – Guy Ritchie interview Brad, and they seem reasonably tight in real life. Guy managed to avoid being sycophantic or ass-kissy, which is nice. You can read the full piece here, and here are some highlights:

Brad on how he decides to do a film: “Well, listen, I think I’m at a point now where I feel like I can jump into anything and lay something down that’s quality. Someone may be better at it—or maybe not—but I know that if I have a feeling for it, then I can make it interesting. But even more as I get older, it’s about the company that I keep. That’s the most important thing to me—that if I’m gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it’s very important for me to know that I’m working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we’re going for something together. That’s it, really.”

Brad on accent work: “Well, you know, I like a bit of song, and dialect is a song. I’m most comfortable with the Southern dialects, really. It’s easy, for example, for me to do Irish because we’ve got Irish heritage where I come from. We also have some German heritage. The Upper East Coast, though, is a little bit more connected to a British heritage. I’ve never done a proper Brit.

Brad on media and politics: “Well, it’s what we were talking about, how so much of what’s in the media—at least in American media—falls in line in this way where it’s just parodying the mission statement. Again, so much of it seems to be about perception. We are a country that needs a story. You know, marketing is the word that I used earlier, but it’s really just a new term for propaganda. It might be a very human thing across the board, but we, in America, love a story—we need a story to get involved in. But then everything becomes more about how the story protects a certain perception as we pick sides… And, by the way, most people’s daily lives are just about surviving. Their lives are about making the weekly nothing and taking the kids out on a Sunday. Most people don’t have time to really study the issues. And the media could help us, but there’s capitalistic interest in the media outlets as well. I mean, the Internet has done a wonderful thing for us. But democracy doesn’t work unless people are well informed, and I don’t know that we are. People just don’t have the time.”

On ‘The Assassination of Jesse James’: “The Assassination of Jesse James remains one of my favorite films that I’ve done. You know, it’s still labeled a loser. In fact, Dominik couldn’t get a job for several years afterward because it got labeled that way after the opening weekend. But then we always knew, “That one’s a fine-wine film. It’s gonna age well.””

Family first: “Yeah. I want it to be worthy enough of a story to leave the family, you know? They’re everything. The family is first . . . I also don’t want to embarrass them.”

How he feels about himself as an actor: “Pretty damn solid. I’d say pretty damn solid.”

He enjoys producing more than acting: “Yeah. I’d rather be behind the camera. As a producer, obviously, you’re part of a team that brings the story to the screen. It wouldn’t be there if you didn’t champion it or if you and a group of people weren’t championing it. I like that.”

On World War Z’s neverending production: “We’ve got some tidying up to do there, but that one is gonna be big and entertaining. My boys are gonna love it.”

He’s still an Obama supporter: “Well, I just want to avoid confusion with this film and say I’m a big supporter of Obama, and I think he’s our best answer for the next four years.”

[From Interview Magazine]

Brad and Guy also have a lengthy discussion about the background of the 2008 financial meltdown and whether or not “business trumps humanity”. Brad makes some interesting points, but I think he over-simplifies the politics of it. As for whether Brad still gets love from fan-girls… did anyone swoon a little when he said, “I want it to be worthy enough of a story to leave the family, you know? They’re everything. The family is first . . . I also don’t want to embarrass them.” Brad Pitt: Family First. Epic!

Photos courtesy of Steven Klein/Interview Magazine.