At the premiere for Brad Pitt’s ‘Heart of the Beast,’ he said he is mostly interested in “finding some truths and finding some stories that mean something to me”

NEED TO KNOW

• Brad Pitt explained why he has been opening up more about his personal life in recent weeks while attending the Heart of the Beast premiere in Tennessee on Sept. 16
• Pitt recently spoke candidly about his emotional and mental struggles, grieving his mother’s death and no longer living sober in an August interview with Esquire
• Heart of the Beast is in theaters Sept. 25

Brad Pitt is explaining why he decided to get so personal in a recent interview.

Pitt, 62, stepped out in Franklin, Tenn., on Wednesday, Sept. 16, for the premiere of his new survival movie, Heart of the Beast, wearing a military camouflage-style suit.

While speaking with Extra on the red carpet, Pitt was asked about opening up about his “ups and downs” in recent weeks.

In an Esquire interview published Aug. 10, Pitt detailed his emotional and mental struggles over “family stuff” and his mother’s August 2025 death. He also revealed that he now drinks alcohol “in a more restrained manner” after living sober for seven years.

“What else are we here for? You know, other than [to] connect and take care of each other and, like, make each other better. Like, why else are we here?” Pitt said on the red carpet. “The human struggle is real, you know? It’s a challenge and it’s an obstacle course and we need each other. We can’t do it alone.”

“At this point in my life, man, I just care less about any of it other [than] about, like, finding some truths and finding some stories that mean something to me and that I know I can elevate,” he added. “Otherwise, I’ll stay on the couch.”

In the lengthy Esquire interview, Pitt said he experienced “one little period” in his life when he understood the idea of dying by suicide.

“I thought, ‘Oh, okay, now I understand’—I understand suicide, in the sense that it’s just relief. It’s just looking for relief from the pain. But I also think we have incredible survival instincts. And for me, that immediately kicked in, but it was just . . .”

“Yeah. Like, listen: This s— ain’t easy,” he added. “And you’re talking to a guy who won the lottery.”

When Esquire asked if that difficult period was related to his family, Pitt responded, “Family stuff. We could leave it at that.”

Pitt is 10 years removed from his contentious divorce from Angelina Jolie, who filed for divorce in 2016. Their divorce was finalized in 2024 following years of legal battles. The former couple share six children — Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax, Knox and Vivienne — four of whom have filed petitions to drop “Pitt” from their last names.

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Heart of the Beast is in theaters Sept. 25. Next, Pitt will reprise his Academy Award-winning role from 2019’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood in The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, which hits IMAX theaters Nov. 25 before arriving on Netflix Dec. 23.

Pitt is also expected to reunite with George Clooney for another entry in the Ocean’s franchise. In October 2025, Clooney told E! News that he was working on scheduling filming for Ocean’s 14, a sequel to 2007’s Ocean’s Thirteen that would reunite him with Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and more for a fourth installment in the popular heist series. Production on the long-awaited sequel is expected to begin this October, Variety reported in December 2025.

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