Top Dog Brad Pitt

Then there were the reports of tension with co-star Harrison Ford. "He's absolutely cool," says Pitt. "Look, it was tough. It was the hardest film I've ever been on. But as for reports about out-of-control egos and people hiding out in trailers, that just wasn't the case. It was everyone trying to make the best movie they could under the circumstances." He fires up a Camel. "I'm playing a Catholic kid from Ireland," he says. "I'm speaking for this situation that's gone on for years. I felt a huge responsibility for that." He gets up to sift through his CD collection (Bob Marley, Shawn Colvin, Dave Matthews Band. . .). "So I'm not just gonna sit there and say, 'Oh, I'm Irish! Give me a Guinness!' " He laughs. "I'm not gonna make leprechaun jokes."

In fact, Pitt went to Belfast alone to research the role. "At one point I stop at a Protestant bookstore," he says. "I look in the window for two seconds. Boom! I get this wing job from two Catholic guys. It about knocked me over. They just kept on walking. You know that walk?" He struts around, elbows out. "When you're pumped?"

As he talks, a fetid odor insinuates its way into the trailer. He frowns slightly. "Smells like pooh," he says. He keeps talking. It won't go away. He goes to the door and pokes his head out. He finally locates the culprit ? a burly crew member who hit a nearby Porta-Potti.

Pitt looks sly. "I thought it was you," he says to me. He emits a dry cackle. "And be honest," he says. "You thought that it was me, didn't you?"

Let's look around the trailer for a moment, shall we? A fax machine, a black Prada tote (hmm — fiancee Gwyneth Paltrow's doing?), Scientific American magazine, an array of first-run movies such as The People vs. Larry Flynt and Sling Blade on tape, myriad packs of smokes, a book on Frank Lloyd Wright (architecture is one of Pitt's passions) and a Gargantuan box of strawberry Twizzlers ("That could go in a day," he says, grinning).

Pitt has been here only a few weeks. Before that, he had spent five months filming in Argentina (which was around the time that Martin Scorsese started filming his Dalai Lama opus, Kundun, in Morocco. Hollywood!). From the start, Tibet was a fairly Herculean affair. Start with a set located in the tiny town of Uspallata. Add 100 monks handpicked by Annaud, machine-gun-toting guards to protect Pitt from hordes of rabid fans and no less than 16 languages spoken on the set, and you have an epic even before the cameras roll.

Pitt, for his part, has been having a ball. Mountain climbing was new to him — he and Thewlis prepped by "doing some glaciers" in Austria, then tackling the Dolomites, in Italy. "Sure, I'm scared of heights," he concedes. "Absolutely. But this is fantastic." He uses the word mission to describe recent shoots in the nearby mountains. "We all pile in these helicopters. You take off in these little tin cans, and you fight the wind, trying to stay level." He pauses. "I'm getting excited. I have to stand up." By all means. "Thank you. You fly up these mountains and land on a frozen lake," he continues. "This wall of blue ice glowing. It's fantastic."

Filming is often delayed because of the temperamental weather. "The minute the safety guy says, 'We gotta go,' we dump everything, stop shooting, everybody gets in the helicopter, and we go down," says Pitt with relish. "Wild." He's moving around, talking with his hands. He puts on another CD — Soundgarden ("Greatest band in rock & roll right now"). For the moment, he is tired of talking about himself, so he cranks up "Burden in My Hand" and proceeds to rock out. It's always sort of a strange moment when someone rocks out. What is the etiquette here? Fill in on air drums? Pick something up and examine it?

You opt to look out the trailer door and take in the view of the mountains. After a bit, Pitt joins you in contemplation. "Man, this is beautiful," he says. He looks around with a lazy smile. Yes, for many guys, this setup is ski-bum-bachelor heaven, and so it is for Pitt.

But there is one thing missing. Or, more specifically, one person.

Ask Pitt to name the most significant change in his life in the past year, and he looks slightly incredulous. "I'm getting married," he says. Of course. She is Gwyneth Paltrow, 24, Hollywood's darling after her elegant turn in Emma, smart, stylish, the child of actress Blythe Danner (The Prince of Tides) and TV producer Bruce Paltrow (St. Elsewhere).

"I can't wait, man," he says heartily. He is hiking in the woods behind the camp. His boots make squelches in the mud. "Walk down the aisle, wear the ring, kiss the bride," he says. "Oh, it's going to be great. Marriage is an amazing thing. And what a compliment: 'You're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with,' you know? Because I'm only going to do it once." He saw his fiancee a few days ago, when the pair drove up the California coast to Big Sur to celebrate their 2-year anniversary. They try not to let more than two weeks go by without seeing each other. "It used to be a three-week rule, now it's two," he says. "You should see our phone bills."