Brad Pitt Says 'Out of This Misery Came a Flame of Joy' After Breakup from Angelina Jolie
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Brad Pitt is opening up about making art while dealing with personal turmoil.
In a new interview with Financial Times, the actor sheds light on the making of his sculptures, which are featured alongside the work of his longtime friends, Australian musician Nick Cave and British artist Thomas Houseago, in an exhibition at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland.
In the months following his 2016 split from Angelina Jolie, Pitt, 58, spent time working on sculptures at Houseago's Los Angeles art studio, during which he said the two bonded over difficulties in their respective lives.
JUSSI KOIVUNEN/SARA HILDEN ART MUSEUM/AFP via Getty Nick Cave, Thomas Houseago and Brad Pitt
"Our mutual misery became comic," the Bullet Train star told FT of his time with the artist. "And out of this misery came a flame of joy in my life."
"I always wanted to be a sculptor; I'd always wanted to try it," Pitt added.
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Sami Kero/HS/Lehtikuva/Shutterstock NIck Cave and Brad Pitt
According to the Associated Press, the show was originally conceived to showcase only Houseago's work, but the artist convinced the museum to also include Pitt's sculptures and Cave's ceramic figurines.
Nine of Pitt's sculptures are included in the show, including "Aiming At You I Saw Me But It Was Too Late This Time," which depicts a gun fight between eight figures, and a large piece showing hands, feet and faces attempting to break through a coffin-sized structure.
"It's all about self-reflection," he told FT. "I was looking at my own life and really concentrating on owning my own s---: where was I complicit in failures in my relationships, where have I misstepped."
The Oscar winner continued, "For me, it was born out of ownership of what I call a radical inventory of self, getting really brutally honest with me, and taking account of those I may have hurt."
Pitt later opened up to the publication about his evolution as both a visual artist and a movie-maker — and how it all relates to his sense of self-awareness.
JUSSI KOIVUNEN/SARA HILDEN ART MUSEUM/AFP via Getty Nick Cave, Thomas Houseago and Brad Pitt
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"It's just exhausting to be anything but who you are," he says. "You have to understand, at least where I grew up, we're more the Clint Eastwood character; you hold everything within, you're capable, you can deal with anything, you don't show weakness."
He continued, "I see that in my dad and the older generations of actors, and, man, it's exhausting. As I get older, I find such a comfort in friendships where you can be [completely yourself], and I want that to extend in the outer world. What people make of it: I'm fine. I feel safe here because there's a focus on our struggles as human beings, because it's fraught with peril. And joy as well."
He concluded, "I find I have to walk with the pain I experience, and I have to walk with the joy, the beauty."
In fact, the group exhibition draws from each of the men's life challenges, including Houseago dealing with the realization of having been abused as a child, per FT.
"We were thrown together in trauma and catastrophe," said Houseago, referring also to his and Pitt's struggle in the past with alcohol, Cave's addiction to heroin during the 1980s, Pitt's divorce and custody battle with Jolie, 47, and the deaths of two of Cave's sons.
