Brad Pitt: kids help fight “congenital sadness”

Brad Pitt has said he suffers from a “congenital sadness” endemic to the region he grew up in - but his children help cheer him up.

Speaking about The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford on Good Morning America yesterday, Brad noted that his character Jesse James also grew up in Missouri and that helped him build a connection: “He’s from the same area that I’m from. I was surprised how much that meant to me in the end, to do something that had a connection with home.”

Regarding the “congenital sadness” of the region, he said: “It’s something that I feel in my grandparents, in the people I’ve met, in a Southern way of life. It’s something pervasive, an undercurrent that I think Christianity answers.”

But rather than solving his sadness through religion, he’s found his joy through fatherhood: “It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever taken on. It’s the most difficult, the most rewarding and the most fun. I think this is the greatest thing I could possibly achieve, and hats off to all the parents out there.”

“They say the funniest things I’ve ever heard. They’re the funniest people I’ve ever met.”

He added: “One of the things I’m most happy about for my kids is that their mother, I think, because she’s amazing.”