TIFF 07 Rewind: Chatting with winner named Brad Pitt!

by Stevie Wong

Over the next two weeks, you'll be seeing some post-script entries featuring interviews that I conducted at this years Toronto International Film Festival. Because it takes time for our amazing online team to gather my interviews and cut pieces for you to see here, we're finally able to get these out for you to see.

First up for the TIFF 07 rewind is an exclusive interview with a certain Brad Pitt. It was right after the packed press conference of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which I couldn't get into) that word got around that Brad had just won the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival.

Guess who got to speak to him less than thirty minutes later? I couldn't believe that the timing was so perfect!

So there I was, waiting for Brad to come to the interview room to chat about his surprise win. It's funny to watch a whole team of people get ready for someone like him because a slow wave of walkie talkies announced that 'Brad was in the elevator', 'Brad is coming up' and I think I even heard, 'There's Brad' when he and his bodyguards walked right by us.

The interview turned out to be really cool. Brad was in the best mood (wouldn't you be?) and was also really happy about the win of his Babel co-star Cate Blanchett for her pitch perfect homage of Bob Dylan in the film I'm Not There.

But since I'm also an intrepid reporter, my interview with Brad talked about how much we both loved co-star Casey Affleck's performance in the picture, plus we talked about the issues of 'celebrity' that the bandit Jesse James dealt with in his time.

While we're at it, please excuse the t-shirt that I wore for this interview. I swear it looked really cool in the mirror, but on camera, the flower bud looks like a second head. Ignore it and this interview will be just fine!