Published by: World Tibet Network News Saturday, September 20, 1997

By Robert Hofler

HOLLYWOOD (Reuter). Thursday September 18

STARS & BEARS & BUDDHISTS

What's the difference between directing Bart, the bear, and Brad Pitt, the movie star?

"At least Brad Pitt didn't jump me and try to kill me," says Jean-Jacques Annaud, who directed the former in "The Bear" and the latter in the upcoming "Seven Years in Tibet."

Annaud claims that Bart was a real divo: "I still have a scar that I can't show you!" Even so, he says, "I should have signed Bart."

That's because Bart now co-stars with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin in the thriller "The Edge," which opens next week.

For his part, Pitt says that making "Seven Years in Tibet" - on location in the Himalayas playing a Nazi mountaineer who befriends the young Dalai Lama -- was a refreshing experience.

"You'd be working in 100-degree heat and there would be an 80-year-old Buddhist monk standing there all day, smiling," Pitts recalls. "That's the polar opposite of Hollywood. And that was a big thing for me."