Older, Wiser Pitt Happy With Life's New Path

Now 45 and the father of six, Brad Pitt appears ready to shed the image of clowning heartbreaker to tackle weightier matters in life and work, writes Reed Johnson in the Los Angeles Times. Pitt’s role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which his character ages backward, challenged him to assess his own life, he says. “Once you hit 40, you start reexamining the math of it all. I’ll trade wisdom for youth any day.”

And Pitts says Angelina Jolie has him on the right track. “I had a whole other life and I got to experience a lot,” he says. “And it kind of ran its course, you know, it kind of hit a dead end.” Becoming a father is “the direction I always thought I would go in. But … with Angie it felt like a natural evolution, a natural direction.” (More Brad Pitt stories.)