Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins have both detailed their past struggles with alcohol.
The actors, who co-starred in the 1998 movie “Meet Joe Black,” agreed they used booze to escape from the realities they were facing at certain points in their lives.
“Well, I just saw it as a disservice to myself, as an escape,” Pitt, 55, told Hopkins, 81, in a conversation for Interview magazine.
“It was necessary,” Hopkins added.
“To some degree, yes,” said Pitt.
“It’s a gift,” the “Silence of the Lambs” actor shared. “I myself needed to hide it, years ago.”
Hopkins, who has been sober for 45 years, called his addiction a “great blessing” because it caused him to make mistakes and learn self-forgiveness.
In September, the New York Times reported that Pitt went to Alcoholics Anonymous for a year and a half after Angelina Jolie filed for divorce. “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” Pitt told the publication at the time.
In Interview, the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” star also touched upon the current age of “cancel culture,” noting that people now are focused more on the mistakes than the choices that are made after.
“I think we’re living in a time where we’re extremely judgmental and quick to treat people as disposable. We’ve always placed great importance on the mistake,” Pitt explained. “But the next move, what you do after the mistake, is what really defines a person. We’re all going to make mistakes. But what is that next step? We don’t, as a culture, seem to stick around to see what that person’s next step is.
“And that’s the part I find so much more invigorating and interesting.”
Pitt alluded to the “mistakes” he’s made in his own life, explaining that they led to his newfound wisdom.
“I’m realizing, as a real act of forgiveness for myself for all the choices that I’ve made that I’m not proud of, that I value those missteps, because they led to some wisdom, which led to something else,” he shared. “You can’t have one without the other. I see it as something I’m just now getting my arms around at this time in my life. But I certainly don’t feel like I can take credit for any of it.”
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