Look at all these Brad Pitt interviews! Yesterday it was the cover of GQ. Last night he walked the carpet at the DC screening of Ad Astra and talked to Entertainment Tonight about going to Kanye West’s Sunday service. And he’s talking to Entertainment Weekly about the film, which is more of the same sound bites, but when asked about Oscar campaigning for his performance in Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood, this was his response:
“Oh, man. I’m gonna abstain,” he says of campaigning for either role (though his generous recent press schedule may belie that). “I mean, you never know, and it’s really nice when your number comes up. But the goal is for the film to land, to speak to someone whether it’s now or a decade from now. I find chasing it actually a disservice to the purity of your telling a story, and a shackling thing to focus on.”
Bless EW for putting that note in parentheses about his “generous press schedule” because…you know. But sure, Team Pitt could argue that he has a duty to promote his current film, a responsibility to the artists and the investors who made this film happen. And that once Ad Astra is covered, he’ll disappear and we won’t see him again until the first award show red carpet since, despite his insistence that he won’t be campaigning, he will get nominated – Critics’ Choice and Golden Globes are pretty much a guarantee, and I can’t see the SAGs and the Oscars ignoring him either.
He can’t help it if people talk about his chances, Lainey. If he says he’s not going to campaign, he won’t campaign because he doesn’t want to chase it. Truly not campaigning though would be the Frank Ocean approach. Frank didn’t want anything to do with the Grammys so he did not submit for any Grammy nominations. Are you telling me that the studio is going to leave Brad’s name off the ballot? And that the studio won’t putting any money into a For Your Consideration rollout? Not even a billboard along La Cienega?
OK fine, if that’s what he’s saying, I guess we have to believe it. I can live with believing it – but from this angle: Brad Pitt wants us to know he’s not thirsty for Oscar. Unlike… you know…someone he just worked with whose Oscar campaign kept reminding us of his STRUGGLE. How cold he was. How much peril he was in when he had to fake fight the fake bear. I’ll take it as a shot at Leo.