Never content to be just another Hollywood hunk, Brad Pitt these days is not just one of America’s most bankable film stars but also a sought-after and influential movie producer. The actor, 48, starred in the critically acclaimed ‘Moneyball’ which has earned him a best actor Oscar nomination at this year’s awards, as well as in the art film ‘The Tree of Life.’ But these days, it is Pitt’s work as a producer that most sets his heart racing. The actor is on a mission to make sure that quality films, not just mindless trifles, get made in Hollywood. In ‘Moneyball’ Pitt played the role of Billy Beane, a baseball manager who used a quirky but effective statistics-based approach to spotting on-field talent. Pitt relished his Oscar-nominated role in the film, but said he may have gotten even more satisfaction as its producer. “Any movie you see here today wouldn’t have made it to the screen, unless you had someone with the idea that this would make a good movie and then the fortitude and luck to push it through. Each one of these movies took some heavy lifting,” Pitt told AFP. “That’s why I enjoy the producing side so much,” he said. His work on the production side of the film business had been made possible via his Plan B Entertainment film production company. Over the years he has produced some two dozen films, including ‘Running with Scissors,’ ‘Kick-Ass’ and ‘The Tree of Life’ which Pitt also starred in. He plans to take a breather from the frenetic pace, to spend a bit more time with Angelina Jolie and the six children they have together. As for trying his own hand at directing in the future, he has ruled it out. “It’s too much. I’m too much of a perfectionist,” he said. Pitt can be seen in two more upcoming films in which he has starring roles, ‘Cogan’s Trade’ and ‘World War Z.’ Pitt has since been nominated for acting Oscars in 1996 for ‘Twelve Monkeys’ and again in 2009 for ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ Moneyball, his third nod, also garnered a best picture nomination.
