Hot Actor: Brad Pitt

Last year, Brad Pitt attended the premiere of Cape Fear as the date of his girlfriend, Juliette Lewis. Pitt was hanging out on the sidelines while Lewis did her publicity stuff when a bank of harsh lights zapped him in the eyes. "Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt," a voice called from behind the blinding lights, "can we ask you a few questions?"

"Well, sure," Pitt said.

"How does it feel to be on Beverly Hills, 90210?" the voice shouted.

Pitt started laughing and said, "I'm not on 90210."

The lights shut off as suddenly as they had turned on, and the cameras were quickly carried away. "I mean, just like that," Pitt says. "Fade to black. I got a kick out of that."

Pitt, a twenty-eight-year-old actor from Missouri, has never played a troubled, good-looking rich kid named something like Brandon or Dylan; he did, however, play a troubled, good-looking cowboy named J.D. in the movie Thelma and Louise. J.D. was on the screen for about fifteen minutes, but everyone who saw the movie remembers the performance, during which J.D. gave Thelma her first orgasm and stole her last dime. "The giant step of Brad's career," says Pitt, using a mock narrator's voice, "was Thelma." He returns to his own Missounan drawl: I figured it would be a role like J.D. — something I'm good at, a Southern guy — that would make the break. It basically opened the door for some kind of respect, working with all those great people."

Pitt stars in three movies that will be released in the next six months: Johnny Suede, a droll, low-budget comedy of manners; Cool World, a live-and-animated Ralph Bakshi voyage into a parallel cartoon universe; and the screen adaptation of Norman MacLean's classic novel about families and fly-fishing, A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford.

"Brad's a very instinctive actor," says Johnny Suede director Tom DiCillo. "A lot of actors are busy putting up clouds of smoke, but you can see right into him. I think he's going to go far."

"Brad is a throwback to what I thought Americans should be like," says Ralph Bakshi. "Like the guys who hit the beach at Iwo Jima. He can also act. He's going to go places."

"I keep having this dream that someone wants to borrow my toothbrush," Pitt says, peering from beneath the brim of a camouflage hat. He's kneeling next to a bathroom sink with a screwdriver in one hand, screwing a porcelain toothbrush holder into the wall. It's home-improvement day at the ramshackle three-bedroom house in West Hollywood that he recently rented with his buddy Buck Simmons. "No kidding," Pitt says. "Five nights in a row. It's a different person in each dream. I just watch them brushing their teeth with my toothbrush and cringe."

Once the blue plastic no-doubt-Freudian symbol sits securely in its holder, Pitt leads a tour of the house, explaining his vision of things to come while three happy-looking dogs race around, a blur of pink tongues and skidding paws. Pitt sees a croquet court in the front yard, an archery range along the side and a basketball court in the driveway. "We got the hoop," he says. "We're putting it up this afternoon." One room is jammed with musical instruments and recording equipment Another is virtually empty, except for a few boxes. Harsh Southern California sunlight glares through the windows. This turns out to be Pitt's room. His bed is a foam pad on the floor of the closet. "It's still a little bright for me out here," he says.

Pitt was born in Oklahoma and raised in the city of Springfield, Missouri. His mom, Jane, describes the family as "very close-knit." Brad's dad, Bill, worked until recently in management at a trucking firm in Springfield. In high school, Brad did a little of everything — team sports, debating, student government, small parts in the school musicals. In college at the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising, he acted a little in fraternity "Spring Fling" shows. But even when he left Missouri to go to Los Angeles in 1986 — just two credits short of graduation — no one really had any idea that he'd become an actor. "No one was surprised, though," Jane Pitt says. "He's just someone who's always liked to try new things."

Leaving his home state was easy once Pitt realized that he could. "You don't really get it into your head that you can leave," he says, "because ... I don't know. Not too many people leave. Till it was about time to graduate and it just dawned on me — 'I can leave.' It would be so simple, so easy. You load up the car, you point it west, and you leave. And everything's open."

From his arrival in Southern California — his pretext for coming was attending an art school that he never actually set foot in — Pitt was convinced that he wanted to be in movies. While studying acting, he supported himself by driving strippers around in a limo, delivering refrigerators to college students and collecting money for the policemen's ball. His closest brushes with professional acting during this time were work as a movie extra and a stint as a giant chicken standing in front of el Polio Loco, a fast-food chain (the chicken suit had eyes in the neck). "At the time, it was all exciting," Pitt says, "though I wouldn't want to go back and do it now. Even though I am still sleeping on the floor."