Slippin' around on the road with Brad Pitt

One certainly can't be expected to start an adequate adventure without clean underwear. Which explains why our cab is currently hurtling toward a department store instead of the station where our train is due to leave at any moment. Mr. Pitt needs some underpants. Mr. Pitt needs some socks. We procure the necessities, sprint ahead to the station and settle into the first-class compartment with seconds to spare. Next stop: Scotland.

The British countryside flashes by — a slide show of browns and off-browns — and Pitt settles in for the three-hour tour. His long hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, a small knapsack rests at his side, and he continually sketches in a journal that he carries with him at all times to help indulge his architecture addiction. From a distance he looks like just another student traveling through Europe: a wiry frame covered by baggy Indian-style pants, a loose-fitting shirt and a weathered leather jacket. Up close, however, he appears less boyish and more like the 30-year-old man that he is. This is due in large part to the smattering of scars that are mapped across his face. A tour is requested.

"This one is from baseball," says Pitt, pointing to his cheekbone, "a pop fly that I lost in the sun. I still threw the guy out on second after it dropped on my face." He smiles and turns the other cheek. "This one was just one of those nights, one of those drunken nights." He stops suddenly. "I don't know if I want to say, 'drunken night.' I mean, my parents are going to read this."

After it is pointed out that even Pitt's parents are going to be bored to tears if he doesn't start putting out, he once again lightens up. Talk turns to Cormac McCarthy, author of his favorite novel, All the Pretty Horses, which Pitt recently read for an audio book. Pitt also speaks about the 600 acres of land he purchased in the Ozarks and his hopes to personally design a home that he can use for family reunions. And with this, as is often the case, he returns to speaking about his family. Born in Oklahoma but raised in Springfield, Pitt is the oldest of three children. Both his brother, Doug, 28, and sister, Julie, 25, live in Springfield with new babies of their own, and he talks to them often.

"I always looked up to both of my brothers," says Julie. "I just thought they were the greatest things that ever happened. Doug and Brad really play off each other. We just had such a close family, and that gave us confidence. I think that's what allowed Brad to try to be an actor. Sometimes I can't believe that this guy from Springfield made it, but Brad has always succeeded in what he's done, and he's always had a way with people."

As for his parents, Pitt refers to them as "the biggest guides in my life." His mother, he says, was the first person to ever think he was talented. "She just thought it from Day I," he says.

"Brad looks like his father, and he has the personality of his mother," says Chris Schudy, one of Pitt's best friends from college. "His mother is so down-to-earth, just a super woman. His dad is a great guy but more reserved. A River Runs Through It is almost a mirror image of Brad's family. When I saw the movie, I called him and said, 'You're not even acting. It's just your home unit minus Julie.'"

Pitt's father, a manager for a trucking company, was frequently on the road but regularly took the kids on his trips. He also offered his son advice that still resonates. Once when Brad was playing in a tennis tournament and screaming and throwing his racket, his father walked on the court between games. "He just said, 'Are you having fun?'" says Pitt. "I got all huffy and said no. He looked at me and said, "Then don't do it,' and then walked away. Boy, that put me in my place. I should have gotten my ass kicked, but he was so above that."

Little could Papa Pitt have known how seriously his son was to heed this lesson. Fast forward a decade or so to the University of Missouri, in Columbia, where Pitt is happily biding his time as a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. It's two weeks before graduation, and our star is just two credits shy of getting his degree in journalism with a focus on advertising. Rather than completing the necessary assignments, however, Pitt — in a manner not dissimilar to the Baltimore Colts sneaking out of town in the middle of the night to move to Indianapolis — loaded up his car, a Nissan named Runaround Sue, and drove to Los Angeles.

"It was such a relief," says Pitt. "I was coming to the end of college and the end of my degree and the beginning of my chosen occupation. I knew I didn't want to do it. I remember being so excited as I passed each state line. I drove in through Burbank [Calif.], and the smog was so thick that it seemed like fog. I pulled in and went to McDonald's, and that was it. I just thought, 'Shouldn't there be a little more?'"

At the time, Pitt had $325 in his pocket and no acting experience whatsoever. To alleviate his parents' fears, he told them he was attending the Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena. He wasn't. In reality he was shuttling strippers to and from appointments, delivering refrigerators to college students and dressing up as a chicken outside a fast-food joint called El Pollo Loco. Anything to pay the rent. When he finally landed an acting job nine months later, Pitt came clean to his parents. His dad just said, "Yeah, I thought so."