Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday, November 20, 1997

The Times - 20 Nov 1997

Brad Pitt tells Martyn Palmer why his need for a quiet time making Seven Years in Tibet left him trapped behind barbed wire

Shortly after arriving in Uspallata, a remote dustbowl of a town in the foothills of the Andes, director Jean-Jacques Annaud was faced with having to call his studio back in Hollywood with a rather unusual request in order to protect his big star, Brad Pitt.

Annaud had chosen Uspallata (population 200) and the surrounding area on the Argentine border with Chile because of its similarities to the Himalayas, where his latest project, Seven Years in Tibet - reviewed by Geoff Brown on the facing page - is set. He also chose it because, he thought, it would mean that the cast and crew - Pitt in particular - would be left in peace to get on with the job. But Annaud had seriously underestimated the pulling power of Hollywood's No 1 golden boy.

"The first day he arrived I took him to this little restaurant at the gas station," Annaud says. "Suddenly six buses stop in front of the restaurant and girls are pouring out and screaming, 'Aaaah, Brad Pitt! Brad Pitt!' It was like the Beatles or something."

The paparazzi weren't far behind. Annaud estimates that within a couple of days there were more than 150 different cars, trucks and vans full of photographers from all over the world converging on the town. Annaud had no choice but to move his star into the local army barracks. It was siege time.

"The whole barracks was immediately surrounded by screaming women and photographers," Annaud says. "It had machineguns on the outside walls but I suppose they knew that we couldn't shoot them so they started climbing the walls. The first bill they saw back at the studio was $60,000 for six miles of barbed wire to put around the perimeter wall. They said: 'This isn't in the budget.' I said: 'I know, but what do you expect me to do?' "

The actor himself, who has seen his popularity soar ever since he played a charismatic drifter in Thelma and Louise six years ago, says that even he was surprised by the furore. "We were in the middle of nowhere and I thought it would be the one place we would escape all that. Then again they'd had Evita down in Argentina, with Madonna and everything, and whenever you bring a movie into somewhere and make it tangible for people, there is curiosity. In the end, you just have to get on with the job."

If Pitt is philosophical about the fuss, there are signs that, at 33, the novelty of a life lived under the microscope, where his every move is analysed and judged, is beginning to wear off. Earlier this year, when his relationship with the actress Gwyneth Paltrow ended, the attention reached fever pitch, leaving him weary and somewhat guarded.

Indeed, he says that one of the reasons he chose to make Seven Years in Tibet was because the film's central theme deals with the ultimate shallowness of the individual's quest for success at all costs. Material rewards - and Pitt is now said to be paid $12 million per picture - do not necessarily bring happiness. "We think that success will patch up some kind of hole in our lives and the truth is that it doesn't," Pitt says. "But I can say that until I'm blue in the face and no one is going to hear it."

Pitt feels that the enormous rewards which Hollywood bestows on its chosen few bring their own very real problems. And that success is hollow without "something else", whether it be religion, a secure relationship or whatever, to act as an anchor in life.

"Yeah, sure, I think that's why you see so many of us actors who don't last the long run and don't survive it," he says. "They become self-destructive, whether it's with their career or their life. And I think it's why people have overdosed and so many people have checked out. It's a beast. And it actually puts the emphasis on the wrong thing. You get away with more instead of looking within."

Seven Years in Tibet is based on the true story of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, who in 1939 left behind his pregnant wife to join an expedition which set out to climb Nanga Parbat, one of the highest peaks in the Himalayas.

Harrer, a self-centred, arrogant man, and his colleagues were captured by the British after war was declared. They escaped and Harrer, along with expedition leader Peter Aufschnaiter (played in the film by David Thewlis), trekked through the Himalayas for two years before eventually smuggling themselves into the mysterious Tibetan city of Lhasa, where they were befriended by the 14-year-old Dalai Lama. Harrer, now 85, became one of the Dalai's tutors and, through his friendship, experienced the spiritual awakening which is at the very heart of the film.

But, as the production neared its completion, Germany's Stern magazine revealed what director Annaud says he suspected all along - that Harrer was a member of the Nazi party. "It wasn't obvious to me before we started filming that he was a Nazi," Pitt says. "He was certainly a representative of it, that much was apparent from the script. But when the story came out it took a more sensationalist tack in the sense that when you hear the word 'Nazi' you have visions of concentration camps and mass torture. That wasn't the case here.

"This was an egotistical man looking to further himself. He only cared about himself and this wasn't about political convictions. It wasn't about serving some cause or belief other than the belief in himself.

"In a way, the fact that he was a Nazi enhances the story, because it's about coming to terms with your demons. It was certainly nothing that bothered me."

The shoot itself was extremely arduous and physically demanding on its two main stars. Pitt and Thewlis tackled most of the climbing scenes themselves, after intense pre-film training.

"Actually, we both wanted to do more," Pitt says. "The climbing became a bit of a metaphor for life. The day before you make the assault you are anxious and excited and then you finally get there and it's a battle of the head as much as anything. It's you and the mountain. It was an amazing experience."

Unlike others in Hollywood - notably Richard Gere - Pitt's close contact with Tibetan culture has not led to him becoming a Buddhist. He is still looking for that "something else", but it has obviously made him think about his own life and values. "I'm interested in all religions," he says, "without being part of any religion. And I certainly believe that when you look at this culture, which is completely different from ours and not materialistic, we have a lot to learn from them.

"We had a lot of Tibetan people on set and you spend the day with them and you feel this inner sense of harmony and peace and yet, on the materialistic side, they have nothing. So it makes you wonder if they are on the right track and you're not."