'It's more that I think we're getting recalibrated, but in a good way.'
Brad Pitt is weighing in on the state of the entertainment industry.
The 55-year-old actor stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a story that takes place around the time Charles Manson's followers murdered actress Sharon Tate and her friends at her California home. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Pitt recalls how his parents, Jane and William Pitt, shared with him how these killings affected the way people looked at Hollywood's "Golden Age."
"When my parents described it, it was as the end of this idealized revolution," he tells the publication. "My parents are still hippies, but it was the loss of this dream. As Quentin describes, you sort of portray this utopia, but there is a mildew around the canvas that brought the darkness of humanity into play and ended a lot of my parents' hopes for how they could infuse that ‘love and peace' ideology into the rest of the world. It all sort of crashed and ended so much that some talk of it as a conspiracy. It was the total end of an era -- immediately."
As for whether anything else has "rattled Hollywood" as much as the Manson murders, Pitt responds, "Harvey Weinstein. Can I say that?"
In October 2017, Weinstein, a major movie mogul at the time, was accused by numerous women of sexual assault and misconduct, including Pitt's ex-fiancee, Gwyneth Paltrow. Weinstein has "unequivocally denied" any wrongdoing.
The Times presses Pitt on his answer, and asks if he's referring to "a similar loss of innocence in a world that was cocooned and thought of in a glorified way."
"It's more that I think we're getting recalibrated, but in a good way," he responds.
Also during the interview, Pitt talks about how he feels the idea of masculinity has changed in the entertainment industry. "When I started, I loved Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. I loved them because there was a toughness to them, which was how the male I'd grown up being taught about was meant to be. But they were also vulnerable, raw and open, and I always appreciated that," he shares. "What I see now is a new masculinity, especially with people who have gone through Hollywood and its recalibration, a new male who is more vulnerable. I'm not talking mushiness -- I mean a man who owns his own flaws and is aware of them and open about it. And vulnerable, with real feelings, rather than being this macho, trying-to-be-tough guy. But that might just be me in my old age, on my own trip, projecting onto everyone else."
Prior to the release of his Times interview, Pitt spoke with ET about what it was like working with DiCaprio, whose career has been on a similar trajectory as his own for decades.
"He's a good egg, and I'm really happy the restraining order was lifted off of me, so we were able to work together," the father of six joked. "No, he's a great egg. We come from the same circles and I really admire his taste and his choices. I'm really happy this one lined up for us."
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