Top Dog Brad Pitt

Sparks flew, as many of you know, on the set of Seven. "I knew immediately, I'll tell you that much," he says. "I got within 10 feet of her, and I got goofy. I couldn't talk." He shakes his head. He sprinkles his conversation with mentions of her ("Gwennie's a major cook. What a bonus, huh?"). Clearly, the man is besotted. Part of the reason that the Tibet shoot was so pleasant, for instance, was her presence. "Gwennie was with me the whole time [in Argentina]. It was excellent. You put in a hard day, then you come home, and. . .there she is." He proposed to her in Argentina, in December. "Why do people get married? [Knocks on table] For the bad times." He gets all Allman Brothers on you: "She's sunshine. She sure is."

Pitt's next project is Meet Joe Black, a remake of the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday, in which Pitt will update the Fredric March role as an allegorical Death who falls in love. The movie will be shot in New York. "Gwennie will be in there," he says. "We got it all worked out." Soon the two will begin filming Duets, directed by Paltrow's father.

Then they will get married. Because they are the young couple in Hollywood right now and because all of America talks about the wedding with a proprietary air, as though it is happening to a cousin, this event will be a challenge to pull off without hordes of press and fans. It is hard enough for the two to emerge from their Los Angeles home as it is.

When they are home, they do what you do — bum around. Watch movies while eating dinner in their pajamas. When they go out to restaurants and the like, it is often Paltrow's idea. "She goes out more; I get her home more," he says. "It's a good balance."

It is hard to comprehend the enormity of Brad Pitt's fame, but the hysteria that surrounded the star's arrival into Argentina is a good way to start. "On the first day," says Annaud, a charming, garrulous Frenchman, "I invite him to a restaurant in a tiny village. There are 250 people living there. You have to get to the village by crossing two ropes." As they attempted to eat, "there were like 600 people banging on the windows." Housing Pitt was another matter. "Brad was in an army camp," says Annaud. "We had to put up a double-barbed-wire fence because people would climb the walls. And people would charter buses from Buenos Aires to come see the star. They were yelling and screaming, 'Braaaad!' "

The obsession with Pitt became so fevered that Annaud was forced to call a press conference. "It was starting to get ridiculous — every detail, what shoes he was wearing," says Annaud. "So Brad and I said, 'Listen, we are here to work. We need serenity. Could you leave us alone?' And, magically, they did."

When the director first met with Pitt, he had slight reservations: "I was thinking that he is maybe too much of a. . .good-looking person? But Brad charmed me. He's very genuine. Even if he doesn't know how to say it, he is preoccupied with the dilemma between fame and self-respect. He knows it's not the same thing at all."

If Brad Pitt wanted to, he could sail the seas of cheese forever. He could crank out a formulaic romance picture every year, and folks would be lining up until he was wearing a truss. Instead, when it comes to career choices, he seems to have followed his Inner Agent. His roles have ranged from a delusional psycho killer in Kalifornia to one of the undead in the often ugly Interview With the Vampire to the twitchy, mentally unbalanced rich kid in 12 Monkeys, a role that garnered an Oscar nomination (a performance that Pitt wasn't entirely happy with because he didn't take the role to the next level: "I should have made him completely frightening in the second half of the movie," he says). Pitt has only occasionally ventured into more conventional fare such as Legends of the Fall. Indeed, with his offbeat choices, he seems to operate within the Hollywood system, yet he is curiously removed from it. In the past, he never seemed to play by Hollywood rules, and now, he doesn't have to.

Pitt seems to have followed his gut throughout his life. A Springfield, Mo., boy, he had, by all accounts, a happy childhood with a strong, solid family background. (This is something he has in common with his fiancee. "We hit the lotto on that one," he says.) Pitt is the oldest of three children. His dad, Bill Pitt, is a former manager of a trucking company; his mom, Jane, a high school counselor. His first drink? "I snuck a little taster of Chivas downstairs in the basement." First concert? "The Doobie Brothers, with Foreigner opening." He went to the prom in a white tuxedo "and feathered hair. Zipperhead. It was Missouri, come on." He was a student of advertising at the University of Missouri, although he says he should have been in architecture (his great love, remember?). "But school was about getting out of classes instead of learning," he jokes. "And the architectural school was tough! They were studying day and night! I mean, I was in college, man!"