Brad Pitt has given an extensive and extremely personal interview for the first time since his breakup with his wife Angelina Jolie in September last year, shedding light on many facets of his life, including his Christian upbringing.
Speaking to GQ Style, the 53-year-old A-list Hollywood actor revealed his Baptist and Charismatic roots, including passionate worship and speaking in tongues, the pain of his marriage breaking apart, how he was able to stopped drinking, and how he is working to resolve matters amicably and privately with Jolie.
The GQ cover story interview was released online on Wednesday together with a fashion photoshoot of Pitt posing in three U.S. national parks — White Sands National Monument and Carlsbad Caverns National Park, both in New Mexico, and Everglades National Park in Florida.
Speaking candidly, Pitt shared that he grew up "in caves" in Springfield, Missouri, "surrounded by cornfields."
"And we grew up First Baptist, which is the cleaner, stricter, by-the-book Christianity," he said.
When he reached high school, he said, "my folks jumped to a more charismatic movement, which got into speaking in tongues and raising your hands and some goofy-a** sh**."
Relevant magazine commented that from the way Pitt talked about his Christian upbringing, "it's clear he didn't embrace church."
When asked about speaking in tongues, he said, "I know they believe it. I know they're releasing something. God, we're complicated. We're complicated creatures," he said.
The actor revealed that what he saw in those revival meetings "was one of the draws that propelled me into film."
"Well, people act out. But as a kid, I was certainly drawn to stories—beyond the stories that we were living and knew, stories with different points of view ... I'm certainly not a good orator, sitting here telling a story, but I could foster them in film," Pitt said.
He said in his younger days, he was told that "rock shows are the devil."
However, going to concerts almost helped him relate to the church experience. "I realized that the reverie and the joy and exuberance, even the aggression, I was feeling at the rock show was the same thing at the revival. One is Jimmy Swaggart and one is Jerry Lee Lewis, you know?" he said.
Charisma News remarked that Pitt's faith appears unclear. It recalled that in 2015, Pitt characterized his life as "probably 20 percent atheist and 80 percent agnostic. I don't think anyone really knows. You'll either find out or not when you get there, and until then there's no point in thinking about it."
