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Saturday, April 30, 2016

Brad To Wed When Clooney And His Boyfriend Gets Equal Rights!

Brad To Wed When Clooney And His Boyfriend Gets Equal Rights!: We proudly welcome him to gayborhood! The rumors about George Clooney liking peen have never ceased, but Brad Pitt has used it to his advantage! Poppa Pitt...
The best kind of guy is the one that can make his girl smile, even when she’s mad at him.









北川景子&DAIGOが結婚披露宴 「KSK」熱唱“2度目のプロポーズ”に感涙

2016-04-30 11:12
結婚披露宴を行ったDAIGO&北川景子夫妻/画像提供:所属事務所より
結婚披露宴を行ったDAIGO&北川景子夫妻/画像提供:所属事務所より

【DAIGO・北川景子/モデルプレス=4月30日】1月11日に結婚した女優の北川景子(29)と歌手でタレントのDAIGO(38)が今月29日、東京・グランドプリンスホテル新高輪の大宴会場「飛天」で披露宴を行った。

披露宴には芸能界や政財界から約500人の招待客が出席。2人のドレスは、ウェディングデザイナーの桂由美氏が手がけた。

妻・北川景子、2度目の「KSK」に感激

また、披露宴終盤には新郎・DAIGO自ら作詞作曲したプロポーズソング「KSK(結婚して下さい)」を熱唱。

タイトルは昨年8月のプロポーズの際に送った言葉で、当時、“DAI語”で返答できなかったことを気にしていた様子の妻・北川を気遣ったDAIGOが、2人の思い出をつづった曲とともに改めてプロポーズ。まさかの2度目の「KSK」に北川は、感動で涙を流しながら「HI(はい)」と答えた。

番組共演で交際に発展

2人は2014年1月、バラエティ番組での共演を機に意気投合し、交際に発展。昨年8月、DAIGOが日本テレビ系「24時間テレビ38 愛は地球を救う」のチャリティーマラソン100キロを完走した直後にプロポーズ。今年1月11日に婚姻届を提出し、同日結婚会見を開いた。(modelpress編集部)

not mine.credit and source: MODELPRESS

Mughlai Chicken

INGREDIENTS
Serves: 8-10


  • 2½ centimetres piece of fresh root ginger (peeled)
  • 4 cloves garlic (peeled)
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  • ½ teaspoon dried chilli
  • 4 tablespoons ground almonds
  • 125 millilitres water
  • 5 cardamom pods (bruised)
  • 1 cinnamon stick (broken in half)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 4 cloves
  • 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1½ kilograms boneless, skinless chicken thighs (each cut in 2)
  • 2 onions
  • 250 millilitres greek yoghurt
  • 250 millilitres chicken stock
  • 125 millilitres double cream
  • 100 grams golden sultanas
  • 1 teaspoon garam masala
  • 1 tablespoon caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 75 grams flaked almonds (toasted)


METHOD


  1. Put the ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander and chilli into a food processor, and blend to a paste. Add the ground almonds and water, then blend again, and set aside. Traditionally, this would be done with a pestle and mortar, and there's nothing to stop you using those, or a little spice grinder.
  2. Put the cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and cloves into a small bowl. (Obviously, you don't have to do this, but it saves flitting from cupboard to cupboard looking for the right spices while the oil's spluttering away later.)
  3. Heat the oil in a large pan and add the chicken pieces - in batches so they fry rather than stew - and cook them just long enough to seal on both sides, then remove to a dish.
  4. Tip in the bowlful of spices and turn them in the oil. Peel and finely chop the onions, add to the pan of spices, and cook until softened and lightly browned, but keep the heat gentle and stir frequently, to avoid them catching. Pour in the blended paste, and cook everything until it begins to colour. Add the yogurt, 125ml / half at a time, stirring it in to make a sauce; then stir in the stock, cream and sultanas.
  5. Put the browned chicken back into the pan, along with any juices that have collected under them, and sprinkle over the garam masala, sugar and salt. Cover and cook on a gentle heat for 20 minutes, testing to make sure the chicken meat is cooked through.
  6. It's at this stage, that I like to take the pan off the heat and leave it to cool before reheating the next day. So, either now, or when you've reheated it, pour into a serving dish and scatter with the toasted flaked almonds.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For gluten free: most garam masalas are gluten free but please check packaging.

Many recipes I came across indicated evaporated milk rather than cream, which makes sense if you're cooking in a hot climate. You could keep this in mind should you open a tub of cream and find it spoiled, but in that case don't bother with the spoonful of sugar.

I love the paleness of golden sultanas, their mellowness and how they merge into the curry later, but the usual brown ones are just fine.

To toast nuts, simply shake them about in a hot dry pan until scorched in parts.

not mine.credit and source: NIGELLA

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Easy One-Bowl, One-Step Hollandaise - A Miracle of...

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Easy One-Bowl, One-Step Hollandaise - A Miracle of...: I'm not sure what specifically that would be, but I assume there’s some kind of science behind this amazing, and possibly modern metho...

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

栗と大納言の宇治抹茶チーズタルト/画像提供: PABLO(パブロ)
栗と大納言の宇治抹茶チーズタルト/画像提供: PABLO(パブロ)
断面/画像提供: PABLO(パブロ)
断面/画像提供: PABLO(パブロ)
PABLO新作「栗と大納言の宇治抹茶チーズタルト」/画像提供: PABLO(パブロ)
PABLO新作「栗と大納言の宇治抹茶チーズタルト」/画像提供: PABLO(パブロ)
credit: MODELPRESS

GS Kitchen: Mini Cheese Tart

GS Kitchen: Mini Cheese Tart: Mini Cheese Tart Tips for the pastry: If you are using icing sugar, the pastry will be softer. But if you are using caster sugar, the te...

Tuesday, April 26, 2016


  • Everybody has gone through something that has changed them in a way that they could never go back to the person they once were.

  • Every relationship has its problems, but what makes it perfect is if you still want to be together when things go wrong.

  • If a girl asks you a question, its better to just give her the truth, chances are she's asking you because she already knows the answer.

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Perfect “Dry-Brined” Pork Chops – Come for the Oxy...

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Perfect “Dry-Brined” Pork Chops – Come for the Oxy...: I’ve wanted to do a video on “dry-brining” for a while now, and was reminded of that fact after recently seeing a friend’s blog post on th...

Brad and Angie - One Love (Iris)

Make Me Whole

Brad and Angie: Dangerously In Love

Brad and Angie - Lost In Your Eyes

2016.4.26PON井上真央ちゃん

Inoue Mao to resign from seventh avenue

April 26, 2016 @ 10:19 am

Actress Inoue Mao (29) will be resigning from seventh avenue.

According to multiple reports, her resignation was recently discussed, and her agency accepted. It appears she has decided to go independent before turning 30 years old. 

It hasn't yet been determined when Inoue would be resigning from the agency. Her latest CM with Tamaki Hiroshi for Takara Holdings' "Shochikubai Shirakabegura Mio Sparkling Sake" just went on air on April 22. It's reported that she will make her leave once adjusting the contract details.
Inoue has been in show biz since she was a child. She gained popularity starring in TBS' "Kid's War", but put her activities on hold in 2004 to study for university entrance exams.

Afterwards, she transferred to seventh avenue and made her return to the industry in 2005. In the same year, she made her big break with the drama "Hanayori Dango". Then in 2011, she played the heroine in NHK's morning drama "Ohisama" and hosted the 'Kohaku Uta Gassen'. Last year, she starred in NHK's morning drama "Hana Moyu". 

According to persons concerned, "The reason for her resignation is not marriage."

not mine.credit and source: TOKYOHIVE
When memories hit you, it hurts.
My silence doesn't mean that I quit. It simply means that I don't want to argue with people who just don't want to understand.
If you stay, stay forever. If you go, do it today. If you change, change for the better. And if you talk, make sure you mean what you say.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

I'm going to smile like nothing is wrong, talk like everything is perfect, act like it's all a dream, and pretend like it's not hurting me.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Brad Pitt - Let's Dance!

Adele Performs 'All I Ask'

Almond Cookies II (Almendrados)



Very little wheat grows in Alicante, Spain, but you can find almond trees everywhere, so the flour in Almond Cookies (Almendrados) is made of nuts, making these intensely flavorful cookies.

Prep time
45 mins
Cook time
10 mins
Total time
55 mins

Author: Barbara Norman
Serves: 20 cookies

Ingredients: 

  • 1 1/3 Cups blanched almonds; plus
  • 10 blanched almonds, split lengthwise; for garnishing
  • 2/3 Cup sugar
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1 pinch salt

Instructions:
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Grind the 1 1/3 cups blanched almonds to a fine paste in electric blender or mortar. Mix ground almonds with sugar and salt. Fold in egg whites beaten to a stiff beak.
  3. For each cookie, drop equivalent of heaping 1/2 teaspoon of mixture onto buttered sheet.
  4. Top each cookie with half an almond.
  5. Bake in 400 degree oven until cookies are lightly browned on top (approximately 10 minutes). The inside of the cookie will look still moist when cookie is done. Remove to a rack and cool.
not mine.credit and source: EPICURUS

Easy Spanish Almond Cookies Recipe - Almendrados

The Spanish have used almonds in desserts and sauces or centuries. Everything from St. James cake, and bienmesabe (Spanish almond cream), to polvorones and panellets cookies.

Almendrados are Spanish almond cookies, which are very simple to make, and make a light, sweet dessert, or snack. Many Spanish prepare them at Christmas, too. Egg whites are beaten to a stiff peak, then sugar, egg yolks and ground almonds are mixed together and baked.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb (1/2 kg) ground almonds*
1 1/4 cups (1/2 lb = 250 gr) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 24-30 cookies

PREPARATION:

* Many times ground almonds are not available in stores, so use raw, peeled almonds. Purchase whole, peeled or peeled, slivered almonds and grind with a food processor until fine. Another option is to purchase whole raw almonds, then blanch and grind at home. Blanching almonds is easy, and takes about 30 minutes for 1 pound.

Heat oven to 360F (180C) degrees.

Grate the lemon peel, avoiding the white part of the peel because it is bitter.

Separate the yolks from the egg whites.  In a small glass or ceramic mixing bowl, beat the egg whites to a stiff peak.

Place the egg whites into a medium mixing bowl, and gently stir in the egg yolks. (No need to mix thoroughly.)

Add the granulated sugar, lemon zest, ground almonds, and optionally the cinnamon, mixing thoroughly.

Using your hands, shape the cookies into mounds or pyramids and place on a greased cookie sheet, or one covered in parchment paper.

Bake in oven on center rack for approximately 15 minutes, until cookies turn a golden color. Remove from oven and gently loosen the cookies using a spatula. Allow to cool on a rack.

Note: Remove quickly from baking sheet. Do not allow cookies to cool completely on the cookie sheet because once cooled, they will harden and become brittle (and  will crumble when you attempt to remove them.)
Store in a tightly covered container or tin.
not mine.credit and source: ABOUT FOOD

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Kumquat Marmalade – Beautiful, Delicious, and Almo...

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Kumquat Marmalade – Beautiful, Delicious, and Almo...: If you’re like me, and marmalade is not your favorite type of fruit preserve, it’s most likely beca use of those bitter flavors from the w...

Thursday, April 21, 2016

新CM発表会に出席した井上真央、玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
新CM発表会に出席した井上真央、玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス

玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
井上真央(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
井上真央、玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
井上真央、玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
玉木宏(C)モデルプレス
CREDIT: MODELPRESS

井上真央「飲み過ぎてしまう」素顔を玉木宏称賛「最高」

 2016-04-21 15:38

【井上真央/モデルプレス=4月21日】女優の井上真央が21日、都内で行われたアルコール飲料の新CM発表会に俳優の玉木宏と共に出席。お酒をたしなむのは「月に1度くらい。最初の一杯で顔が赤くなる」という玉木に反して、井上は「一杯程度ですが、ほぼ毎日」と酒豪ぶりを明かした。

井上真央が酔ったら?

「一人でお酒を飲むようになった時に“大人じゃん”と思う」と実感を語った井上。「顔には出ないので、飲み過ぎたとしても周りに気付かれない。それが厄介な時もあって、皆さんにお酒を勧められてしまうので、飲み過ぎてしまう事も」と苦笑い。

酔うと「凄く褒め上戸になる」という井上は「共演者の方と一緒に飲んでいる時は『あの芝居が好き』とかやたら褒める」とエピソードを披露。玉木からは「共演者としては最高。モチベーションが上がりますね」と羨ましがられていた。


また、理想のタイプについては「九州男児が好き。男らしい方が好きです」と話した。

“初共演”朝ドラあるあるで盛り上がる

CM初共演の玉木に井上は「最近は和服の印象があったけれど、スーツ姿も似合う」とNHK連続テレビ小説「あさが来た」で演じた広岡新次郎とのギャップにドキドキ。


井上も「おひさま」で朝ドラを経験しているだけに「(CM撮影現場では)二人で朝ドラあるある話をしました」と共通項で距離も縮まったよう。一方の玉木は「井上さんの方が年下ですが、大人の色気が漂う方。芸歴もあるし、朝ドラ・大河を経ているので、頼りがいのある存在でした」と最敬礼で、井上を「色気があるなんて今まで言われたことがない。嬉しい」と照れさせていた。(modelpress編集部)

not mine.credit and source: MODELPRESS

Brad - "Teach Me" by Musiq Soulchild

井上真央:初共演・玉木宏がべた褒め 「大人の色気が漂う方」


MANTAN-WEB

井上真央、大好きなお酒を「ほぼ毎日飲んでいます。おじさんみたい……」

[2016/04/21]

NEWS MYNAVI

CREAMY TACO PASTA SALAD

All the flavors of tacos, in an easy to serve pasta salad! Makes a great side dish or easy summer meatless main dish.
Author: Renee P.
Recipe type: side dish, meatless main dish
Cuisine: Mexican, American
Serves: 12 servings

Creamy Taco Pasta Salad has all your favorite Mexican food flavors in an easy to serve pasta salad!

INGREDIENTS

  • 8 oz. - 10 oz. dry bow-tie pasta or your favorite pasta shape, cooked according to package directions, drained and rinsed in cold water
  • 3 cups romaine lettuce, chopped
  • 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
  • 1 - 11 oz. can of Mexicorn, drained
  • 1 cup sliced black olives
  • 3 green onions, chopped
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 3 TBS taco seasoning
  • 1- 10 oz. can Rotel tomatoes, do not drain!

INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Combine cooked pasta, romaine, grape tomatoes, Mexicorn, sliced black olives, green onions, cheddar cheese, and cilantro in a large bowl.
  2. In a small bowl, combine the ingredients for the dressing: mayo, sour cream, taco seasoning, and Rotel tomatoes.
  3. Pour dressing over the salad and mix to combine.
  4. Refrigerate about an hour to allow flavors to blend.
not mine.credit and owner: REAL HOUSE MOMS

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Pitt: The career man
Brad Pitt: The times of his life

Brad Pitt: Hollywood's most wanted man

Updated 9/18/2007 1:53 PM
By Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

TORONTO — There's a reason Brad Pitt is as elusive as his latest character, slippery, sinister gunslinger Jesse James. He is today's outlaw celebrity, living a nomadic existence with his family. There's a sizable price on his head, as any paparazzo will attest. His face sells magazines, his presence inspires hysteria among fans, who abandon rational behavior for a glimpse, a touch, a photo. Like James and his gang, he travels with a posse of kids, security and a life partner.
So it's hardly shocking that Pitt, 43, relates to the desperado he embodies in the intense character study The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The nearly three-hour film, opening in limited release Friday, just netted Pitt the best-actor award at the Venice Film Festival, though the film itself is getting mixed reviews. Pitt's Jesse James is a mercurial, mercenary killer with a mean streak, murdered by a member of his gang.

"I understand the essence of paranoia," Pitt says. "I understand being hunted, to some degree. I understand a bounty on my head. But the movie is about so much more. The real tragedy is that there was a chance he could have gotten past this moment. He's wrestling with himself and lost that battle."

If Pitt wrestles with anything these days, it's the media and fan frenzy that encroaches on his life but is necessary to sell his films and promote his causes.

For this interview at the Toronto Film Festival, Pitt at the last minute insists that director Andrew Dominik join him to keep questions squarely focused on the film. One thing is clear: He's not interested in sharing touchy-feely details of life with partner Angelina Jolie, 32, and their kids Maddox, 6, Pax, 3, Zahara, 2, and Shiloh, 1.

He's dressed casually in a tan shirt and gray newsboy cap as he lopes into the room accompanied by a small entourage of publicists and stylists. Knowing the effect his name and presence have, he makes an effort to bridge gaps and connect by extending his hand and saying, "Hi, I'm Brad." But he never once makes eye contact.

At first, he tries to shift the attention away from himself entirely, pointing to a newspaper with fellow festival attendee Terrence Howard on the cover and saying, "That boy's good."

He praises his Babel wife Cate Blanchett, exclaiming happily when he learns she's at the festival for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, calling her "exquisite" and "gorgeous," and adding, "you can't take a bad picture of her."

He eventually does share a personal detail. He misses his children, who are back in New York: "Two days without the kids," he mutters, shaking his head. But he's not here to discuss his home life: "Personal anecdotes — what does that have to do with the movie?" he asks.

Perhaps the actor is still shaken up by the previous night's premiere of Jesse James, which metastasized into a mob scene. "We had to come back here. We had to get under a garage," he tells Dominik. "Nothing was cordoned off. There were no barriers."

Toronto gossip columnist Lainey Lui (laineygossip.com), who has covered the festival for years, calls what unfolded "the biggest celebrity mob scene ever. Ever."

Jolie and Pitt were in a car together, en route from their screening to the private after-party. "The crowd was so thick anyway, from people downtown on a Saturday night. And then, they were spotted," Lui says. "The crowd started to find out that it was Brad and Angelina. People who were driving down on other streets left their cars and ran to see them. Seven people jumped on their car."

Pitt and Jolie's vehicle tried to inch forward. "We saw all these people running. People were holding up their cellphones (to take photos). This woman appears out of nowhere, runs up with her child, and was pushing her child up against the (moving) car. The lady was like: 'I want my baby to see Brad Pitt.' "

Through it all, "Brad was yelling at the driver to drive, Angelina looked like a woman completely paralyzed. You could read her lips, and she kept saying, 'Get back to the hotel.' "

None of his buddies — Matt Damon or George Clooney, say — have to deal with anything near the furor surrounding Pitt's life.

The next day, Pitt insists that he and Jolie control and manage the fame and rarely find it overpowering. "I understand the deal. It got chaotic last night, but there was genuine happiness, and it meant something to them. It only bothers me when they get in the kids' faces."

Yet they have no plans to stop adding to their family. He has talked openly before about wanting a fifth child. Now he adds, "We're certainly not done. Sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth …"

The family's current base is New York because he is shooting the Coen brothers' Burn After Reading. Jolie and Pitt globe-trot from movie set to movie set, stopping in at their homes in Los Angeles, England and New Orleans in between. It's no accident their life starkly resembles the wandering existence of the James clan, which quietly shuffled from home to home to evade authorities.

"It's impossible for us," he says. "We're run out of every major city. There's just too many paparazzi. There's always cameras in the kids' faces, yelling their names. Angie gets out of the car, and they take the camera down to the curb and shoot up (her skirt). It's unbelievable." That's why "there's a constant negotiation in how to survive and how to maintain a family life."

There's also the maintenance of their charitable causes.

Jolie famously advocates for refugees worldwide, while he is active in the ONE campaign to eradicate poverty and Global Green, which is replacing homes in New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina with eco-friendly buildings.

"It's dismal down there," he says of the city. "We're expanding to a larger project that we're not ready to announce yet."

Bono, who sets the standard in celebrity activism and knows Pitt through their work on the ONE campaign, praises Pitt's efforts and his "intellectual curiosity."

"He has another thing hardly anyone else has in his position: modesty. He never wants to be the professor and always wants to be the student. His modesty belies his capability. He rolls up his sleeves and gets to know the subjects. He's not turning up for the photos, he gets into the trenches. There's a striking candor about him."

Surely, Pitt isn't perfect. Bono responds: "Would you give your house to him for the weekend? Absolutely, but you'd better check your scotch."

Dominik can't quite believe his collaborator of four years is the celebrity world's most wanted man. His first film, Chopper, starred a then-unknown Eric Bana. And Dominik is seeing firsthand the global sensation that is Brad Pitt.

"I just realized how famous he was over the last two places (Venice and Toronto). It's kind of thrilling, a sugar rush, but also really threatening. In Venice, after the press conference, a wave of 200 people ran at the table."

Pitt likens it to "a starting gun going off."

Moviegoers won't find that kind of rush in the pair's film. The movie, which Dominik admits is long and has no surging plot, moves at a saunter and lacks the furious gunplay of a standard Western. Both Dominik and Pitt acknowledge it could be a tough sell for mainstream audiences accustomed to big, brash action flicks.

But Pitt clearly believes in his director: "Andrew understands the undercurrents that propel us to behave like we do, that don't make sense. And through the whole process, he never wavered on his vision."

Dominik says after a few days of shooting, he forgot Pitt was the star of his movie. "I completely accepted him as Jesse. Even in the cast, they would talk about Jesse, not Brad Pitt," he says.

"The hardest thing about doing something with Brad is that he's Brad. When you watch Brad on screen, you never really feel like you know him. He's got an old-time mystery."

James could sniff out liars and traitors. Pitt, too, says he has honed instincts he didn't know he had.

"You develop radar. Like I know when there's someone in the bushes 300 yards away shooting," he says. "I know to recognize that feeling. (On the Canadian set), there was a guy in total camouflage, who commandoed his way on knee and elbow. And I know that feeling. It's inexplicable, one of those instincts."

Confirms Dominik: "He would always spot the paparazzi hiding in the tree."

not mine.credit and source: USA TODAY

Pitt And Jolie Visit Mexico For Movie Premiere,

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Prince William & Kate Middleton's Taj Mahal Visit Gives Princess Diana Her Happily Ever After

by MELANIE BROMLEY Sat, Apr 16, 2016 11:38 PM

Prince William has finally erased the ultimate symbol of his mother Princess Diana's heartbreak with a hugely emotional visit to the Taj Mahal.

As William sat with wife Kate Middleton by his side Saturday, in front of the architectural masterpiece built by a devastated emperor for his deceased wife, the significance of the moment would not have been lost on him.

Twenty-four years ago, a solitary Diana rested atop the exact same bench. While the then Princess of Wales posed for only five minutes as photographers snapped away, the iconic image captured endured and has become a haunting reminder of what is left behind when a fairytale marriage has been irretrievably broken.

 Arguably the world's most magnificent emblem of love, and yet it must have been the place where Diana felt the most unloved. Years before Prince Charles had said he would like to take his wife on a romantic trip to the famous building, but rather than accompany Diana on that February day in 1992, he chose instead to visit an architecture school hundreds of miles away.

Abandoned and alone, Diana went anyway. And after her picture was taken, she couldn't help but reveal to the waiting press how much better it would have been if her husband had accompanied her. Later, she admitted, "It was a very healing experience." When a reporter asked her what she meant by that, she said, "Work it out for yourself."

We now know what Diana couldn't have possibly known at the time, that the breakup of her marriage (announced a few months later) would become bitter and turn into an all-out war. And far more tragically, that she would never get to see her beloved sons grow into the men she hoped they would one day become.

Over the years, since her tragic death in 1997, I have talked to many people who knew her, and they tell the same tale. All Diana hoped for was that William and Harry would find happiness and marry for love. She wanted them to find the happily-ever-after she knew she could never have with Charles.

William did just that. And ultimately his marriage is everything his mother hoped. By going back to the place of Diana's sadness today, and sitting on what is now known as Di's Bench, he is showing that good can come out of the worst kind of adversity.

Today was a son's tribute to his beloved mother. Recognition that she taught him the most valuable lesson of all. It will create new memories for William and Kate (and Prince Harry). And one day, when they are old enough to understand, show Prince George and Princess Charlotte (who shares a middle name with her late grandmother) that heartbreak doesn't last forever. And maybe the ghost of Diana's sadness can finally be laid to rest.

not mine.credit and source: E ONLINE



GMTV Interview - Meet The Smiths

Angie & Brad (George Clooney)

Angie & Brad (George Clooney)

Angie & Brad (George Clooney)

Angie & Brad (George Clooney)

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Koji-Rubbed Steak – New Age Dry Age

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Koji-Rubbed Steak – New Age Dry Age: First, let me give credit where credit’s due; and by “credit,” I mean possible blame. I got the idea from this article in Bon Appetit , wh...

Friday, April 15, 2016

Sometimes I regret being nice, apologizing when I didn't do anything wrong, and for making unworthy people a priority in my life.
I don't care about your - age - weight - sexuality - height - gender - skin color. As long as you respect me, I'll respect you

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Bush fire victim ex-model Turia Pitt engaged to Michael Hoskin

By Staff
Published Sunday, August 09, 2015

Australian ex-model Turia Pitt suffered burns to 65 per cent of her body.

She had four fingers from her left hand and her right thumb amputated and spent more than two years in hospital after she was trapped by a grassfire in a 100 kilometre ultra-marathon in the Kimberley.


Turia is now engaged to marry her long term boyfriend Michael Hoskin.

Michael proposed using a ring he bought when Turia was in intensive care four years ago.

Turia, who works as a humanitarian, shared a picture of herself with Michael writing: "Stoked to have this beautiful man in my life! You bring out the best in me and I can't wait for the rest of our lives together."


The motivational former model suffered burns to nearly two thirds of her body and her boyfriend decided to quit his job to care for her recovery.

Turia, who has undergone over 200 operations since the incident, told Australian Women's Weekly after the proposal that she is overwhelmed with love.

Former policeman Michael said: "When Turia was in intensive care four years ago I bought a diamond ring."



In an interview for CNN they asked Michael: "Did you at any moment think about leaving her and hiring someone to take care of her and moving on with your life?"

His reply touched the world: "I married her soul, her character, and she’s the only woman that will continue to fulfill my dreams."



Following the horrific fire she launched Supreme Court action against the organisers and in May 2014 it was reported that it came to an end with an out-of-court settlement.

The organisers of the event Racing the Planet were harshly criticised for their negligence and incompetence through a Parliamentary Inquiry conducted by the Australian Government.

She has gone on to be named NSW Premier's Woman of the Year and she was a finalist for Young Australian of the Year.

Meet the Pitts - CCOB LA Premiere

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) Bloopers Outtakes Gag Reel

The Tourist (2010) Bloopers Outtakes Gag Reel

Extra Interview:Angie and Jack Black in Cannes. 05.11.2011

Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt present at the 2016 Golden Globes

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Brad Pitt

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Oak Ridge native George Holz photographs celebs from Beyonce to Brad Pitt

April 02, 2016
By Amy McRary of the Knoxville News Sentinel


Photographer George Holz fished with Brad Pitt in Montana, hopped a New York bus with Kevin Spacey and shot Madonna in her 1980s finery. But his first celebrity portrait was taken years before at the Anderson County Fair.

Holz, 59, is a renowned portrait and fashion photographer. His work portrays icons of popular culture from Jack Nicholson to Beyoncé to Michael Jordan to Yoko Ono. Holz's images, often credited with showing his subjects' personalities rather than their personas, have graced such magazines as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and Harper's Bazaar. He's taken photos for movie posters and album covers, including his Grammy Award-winning work for Suzanne Vega's "Days of Open Hand."

He selected 283 photos of 256 people for his coffee-table book "Holz Hollywood: 30 Years of Portraits." About 75 percent of the photos haven't been previously published. Some were taken as candids, as the last images of a photo session or because Holz knew what he saw through his lens would one day work great in a book.

He'll talk about his work and book at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 14, at the University of Tennessee College of Nursing auditorium, 1200 Volunteer Blvd. The lecture is free; the public is invited.

For Holz, who now lives on a farm in upstate New York, the UT appearance is a chance to visit home. His 95-year-old mother, Rose Holz, still lives in Oak Ridge where he grew up. His sisters Bonnie Dings and Barbara Holz live in Knoxville; sister Jane Holz Vercruysee is in Avon, N.C.

He studied at UT from 1975 to 1977 and was a photographer for The Daily Beacon school newspaper. While here, he hopes to see other Beacon photographers with whom he's remained friends. He remembers the fun of that work, especially shooting football and basketball games. "I'm still a lifelong Vol fan. My blood still runs orange. And I have a whole contingency of my friends in New York I have converted to Vol fans."

Holz talks like he was always taking pictures. "I think there was a point after maybe I was 10 or 12 I started disappearing from the family photos. Because I was taking them with my father's Instamatic or Brownie."

His interest grew at Oak Ridge High School when he took a journalism class and learned to develop film. "I remember seeing the pictures come up in the developer, and it was magic. I was transfixed." His sister Jane was in the Navy when she bought her teenage brother his first camera, a Minolta SRT-101.

"I used to develop film in our basement. I ruined all the pipes in our basement. My dad (the late Peter Holz) wasn't so happy about that."

One day in 1971 Holz took his Minolta to the Anderson County Fair. Country singer Lynn Anderson of "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" fame was there for a horse competition. "She got off her horse and stuck her tongue out like she was exhausted, and I took the picture." His sister Bonnie convinced him to send the photo to People magazine. They used it, paying him $50.

Later, as a UT student, he took "every available photography course" before transferring to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. He became an assistant there to photographer Helmut Newton and credits Newton with guiding his career. After college graduation, he took off to Paris and Milan to take beauty and fashion photos. Back in the United States he set up a New York City studio.

He specialized in fashion and then fashion and portraits because "I love shooting beautiful women. I was always the one shooting the majorettes. And I found portraits, whether men or women, to be beautiful."

His work introduces him to some of the world's most beautiful people. He was on a 1991 fly fishing vacation in Montana when his agent called. Would Holz drive a couple of hours to photograph a relatively unknown actor named Brad Pitt?

"It was just him and his dog and his parents, and no one recognized him. He had not done a lot of fly fishing. I gave him tips on casting," Holz said. "I was in the river with him, taking shots."

Holz's black-and-white photo shows Pitt nearly waist-deep in running water, casting his fishing line. "That was a magical shoot that doesn't happen a lot. He was very relaxed; there weren't a lot of publicists and agents and not a huge entourage."

Holz likes to direct his subjects but he knows to be ready to adapt and expect the unexpected. He was photographing Kevin Spacey on a double-decker bus through Times Square one night when Spacey grabbed the bus microphone and began a stand-up comedy routine. "I was laughing so hard I almost couldn't take photos."

In 1998 he was photographing Angelina Jolie. "I was directing her but also letting her do her own thing. She had been a model, and she had so much energy and creative ideas." The two were walking into the kitchen where caterers were making lunch. Jolie suddenly grabbed a big knife; Holz took a shot. It hadn't been published until he selected it for "Holz Hollywood."

In 1999 he had 15 minutes to photograph Donald Trump in the businessman's New York office. "He is to me always an entertainer first and foremost. He was very professional. The photo was quick ... There was not a lot of personal warmth going on."

He asked Jack Nicholson to sit for extra shots after photographing him and Helen Hunt to promote their movie "As Good As It Gets." "Jack said, 'You have one roll.' That was only 10 shots. He was smoking Camel cigarettes in the studio. And I had the lighting set up and took some shots straight and some close. And in the last one he was profile. And he said, 'You got it, kid." I didn't know if I had it or not because it was film."

He got it. The photo shows Nicholson smiling and somewhat smug with the cigarette clenched between his teeth.

His photography, Holz said, relates to a matter of trust. His famous subjects "are human beings; they have good days and bad days … Sometimes you have a lot of time to get their trust. Sometimes you have very little time. They know you have been vetted; they have seen your work so you are past that first level.

"A lot of actors are used to being in front of the movie camera that is always moving. The still camera is capturing their souls for just a moment. They know that one shot, that one instant, is going to live forever. … It's very important that people know how you are dealing with them. They trust you and want to bare their soul, bare their bodies. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't."

not mine.credit and source: KNOX NEWS

MARMALADE PUDDING CAKE

INGREDIENTS
Serves: 6-8


  • 250 grams soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)
  • 75 grams caster sugar
  • 75 grams light brown muscovado sugar
  • 225 grams marmalade (75g of which for the glaze)
  • 225 grams plain flour
  • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 4 large eggs
  • zest and juice of 1 orange ( reserve juice of ½ orange for glaze)

METHOD

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350°F and butter a 24cm / 8inch square ovenproof dish. Put the 75g marmalade and juice of ½ orange into a small pan and set aside to make a glaze later.
  2. Put all the other ingredients for the pudding batter into a food processor, process them and then pour and scrape the batter into the buttered dish, smoothing the top. If you’re not using a processor, cream the butter and both sugars by hand or in a freestanding mixer, beat in the marmalade followed by the dry ingredients, then the eggs and finally the orange zest and juice.
  3. Put in the oven and cook for about 40 minutes – though give a first check after ½ hour – by which time the sponge mixture will have risen and a cake tester will come out cleanish. Remove from the oven and leave in the dish.
  4. Warm the glaze mixture in the pan until melted together, then paint the top of the sponge, letting the chunks or slivers of peel be your sole, unglinting decoration on top of the mutely gleaming pudding-cake. Know that this sponge will keep its orange-scented warmth for quite a while once out of the oven, so you could make it before you sit down for the main course.
  5. Use a large spoon or cake slice (or both) to serve, and put a jug of custard or cream on the table to eat with.
not mine.credit and owner: NIGELLA

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Beurre Blanc – This French Butter Sauce was Spot O...

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Beurre Blanc – This French Butter Sauce was Spot O...: I can’t believe after all these years of posting videos, I hadn’t done a proper beurre blanc! Well, I guess I still haven’t, if you take i...

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH POTS

INGREDIENTS
Serves: 6

  • 150 grams plain flour
  • ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 110 grams soft unsalted butter
  • 85 grams soft light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
  • 1 large egg
  • 170 grams dark chocolate chips
METHOD

You will need: 6 x ramekins approx. 8cm / 3 ½in diameter x 4.5cm / 1 ¾in deep (approx. 200ml / ¾ - 1 cup capacity)

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350°F, and measure the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl, forking together to mix.
  2. With an electric mixer, or by hand, beat the butter and sugar until you have a light and creamy mixture, then add the vanilla paste or extract and the egg, beating again to incorporate.
  3. Gently fold in the flour mixture, then, once it’s all mixed in, fold in the chocolate chips.
  4. Divide the dough between 6 ramekins (you will need about 4½ tablespoons of batter for each one). Using a small offset spatula (for ease) or the back of a teaspoon, spread the mixture to cover the bottom of the ramekins, and smooth the tops.
  5. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 13–15 minutes. They will still be quite gooey inside, but the top will be set, and they should be golden brown at the edges and just beginning to come away from the sides of the ramekins.
  6. Leave to cool for 5–10 minutes before serving. You can spoon a scoop of ice cream on top of each one or serve with cream or crème fraîche on the side. They will set as they cool down, so don’t dally now.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

MAKE AHEAD NOTE: These can be made up to 6 hours ahead, then covered with clingfilm and stored in fridge. Allow to come up to room temperature before baking.

FREEZE NOTE: Wrap each ramekin tightly in a double layer of clingfilm and put in resealable bags or wrap each in a layer of foil. Freeze for up to 3 months. Bake directly from frozen, adding an extra 2 minutes to the baking time.

not mine.credit and source: NIGELLA

Baking Soda and Bicarbonate of Soda

Baking soda and bicarbonate of soda are different names for the same thing; in Australia, we mostly refer to it as bicarbonate of soda, but overseas, especially in America, it is referred to as baking soda.

credit and source: AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Brad Pitt and Archbishop Desmond Tutu Talk Gay Rights in Vanity Fair's Africa Issue

This month Vanity Fair dedicated its entire issue to stories relating to Africa. U2's Bono served as Guest Editor-in-Chief for the special issue, a first for the magazine. Annie Leibowitz shot 20 different covers for the issue, featuring Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Barack Obama, Bono, Brad Pitt, Queen Rania of Jordan, Maya Angelou, and George Clooney, among others.

In the issue Brad Pitt interviews South Africa's Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, during which they discuss gay rights.

Brad Pitt: So certainly discrimination has no place in Christianity. There's a big argument going on in America right now, on gay rights and equality.

Desmond Tutu: For me, I couldn't ever keep quiet. I came from a situation where for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for something about which they could do nothing--their ethnicity. We were made to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our church, we didn't ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of humanity for something about which they could do nothing--their gender. And I'm glad that now the church has changed all that. I'm glad that apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet, because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were less than human, because of something they could do nothing to change--their sexual orientation. For me, I can't imagine the Lord that I worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and he got into trouble precisely because of that. Our church, the Anglican Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It is all to do with human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when the world is aching.

Brad Pitt: I couldn't agree with you more. Thank you for saying that.

[Vanity Fair, July 2007, p. 97-98]

Jul 5, 2007 1:35:00 PM

not mine.credit and source: JOSH AND JOSH

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Pecan Sour Cream Coffee Cake – Now with More Crumb...

Food Wishes Video Recipes: Pecan Sour Cream Coffee Cake – Now with More Crumb...: I’m sure I’ve said it here before, but I’m not a big cake guy. I’ll take a few bites at a wedding for appearances, and of course on a birt...

Monday, April 4, 2016

MOONBLUSH TOMATOES

INGREDIENTS

  • 500 grams cherry tomatoes (on the vine or other baby tomatoes)
  • 2 teaspoons maldon salt (or 1 teaspoon table salt)
  • ¼ teaspoon white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

METHOD

  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7/450ºF.
  2. Cut the tomatoes in half and sit them cut side up in an ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the salt, sugar, thyme and olive oil.
  3. Put them in the oven, and immediately turn it off. Leave the tomatoes in the oven overnight or for a day without opening the door.
not mine.credit and source: NIGELLA

Brad Pitt: A Life So Large

Angie. Kids. Zombies: "I haven't known life to be happier." Our June/July cover story: Brad Pitt.

BY TOM JUNOD MAY 20, 2013
Published in the June/July 2013 issue of Esquire.

Brad Pitt won't remember you. If you've met him, he'll have no idea who you are when he meets you again. Even if you've had what he calls "a real conversation," your face will start fading from his memory as soon as you walk away. He'll try to hold on to its outlines, but your features will suffer an inexorable erasure, and the next time he sees you you'll be brand-new to him. He used to try tricking those he'd forgotten into thinking he remembered them, or at least waiting them out for a clue or scrap of context. But then he decided to experiment.

"So many people hate me because they think I'm disrespecting them," he says. "So I swear to God, I took one year where I just said, This year, I'm just going to cop to it and say to people, 'Okay, where did we meet?' But it just got worse. People were more offended. Every now and then, someone will give me context, and I'll say, 'Thank you for helping me.' But I piss more people off. You get this thing, like, 'You're being egotistical. You're being conceited.' But it's a mystery to me, man. I can't grasp a face and yet I come from such a design/aesthetic point of view. I am going to get it tested."

He is convinced he has that thing, that condition he read about a few years ago. What's it called? Is he pronouncing it right? That's it: prosopagnosia. It's gotten to the point where he doesn't even like going out — "that's why I stay at home" — but he's also a public person, the center of crowds. "You meet so many damned people," he says. "And then you meet 'em again."

And so, if you ever meet Brad Pitt, you should know a few things: He'll probably forget you. He'll probably worry about forgetting you. He'll probably worry that you'll think he's an asshole for forgetting you. And then he'll probably do or say something that will inspire you to tell people that you just met Brad Pitt, and he's not an asshole at all.

"I like Brad because he's not a cock," the British director Guy Ritchie says. "He's about as far away from being a cock as you can be. And it's quite easy to be a cock in his position. It comes for free. If you're famous and you're good-looking, you have a license to be a cock. And I'm not sure if anyone has a bigger license than Brad. The license has 'cock' written all over it. And yet, he's a good guy. That's apparent and manifest as soon as you meet him."

Ritchie met Pitt after he made Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998. Pitt did what he often does after he sees a movie he likes. "He called me," Ritchie says, "and told me that he wanted to be part of whatever I was doing next." They made Snatch two years later, with Pitt as a bare-knuckled boxer whose mumble made the lines he spoke incomprehensible. He was funny, as he always is in supporting roles, and he and Ritchie became friends. "He wasn't a cock back then, either. I've never known him to be a cock."

In the ensuing years, Pitt and Ritchie each took up with women of global fame and they each had kids, and when Pitt came to London last year to film World War Z, he took his children to play paintball with Ritchie's children and impressed Ritchie with "his small army of rather efficient killers." Pitt is, in the estimation of Ritchie and indeed everyone who knows him, "a committed father." He has also traveled a lot and seen a lot — "and those things can prevent cockery." But let's face it: "Every film ever made is about the temptation into cockery. Because that's life. Brad's temptations are greater than most people's temptations, and for him not to act on those temptations means the challenges are greater. He's in it every day. Is he not a cock by design? There has to be some degree of cognizance. A lack of cockery doesn't just happen organically."

It's one of the great creation stories of modern Hollywood. Two credits shy of his journalism degree, with only one paper left to write before he graduated, Brad Pitt left the University of Missouri in his final semester and worked a couple weeks on the loading dock of his father's trucking company in Springfield for gas money. Then he got in the Datsun 200SX his father — "a big softie" — bought him and drove west. He had never been as far west as Colorado. He screamed as he crossed the Colorado state line and then at every state line thereafter, until he ended up in Los Angeles — "me and my big old mullet."

He was already pretty good at leaving and not looking back, some kind of essential forgetting. Indeed, his only certainty was that he was not really leaving anything behind, because his life wasn't back there in Springfield. "I always knew I was going somewhere — going out. I just knew. I just knew. I just knew there were a lot more points of view out there. I wanted to see them. I wanted to hear them. I always liked film as a teaching tool — a way of getting exposed to ideas that had never been presented to me. It just wasn't on the list of career options where I grew up. Then it occurred to me, literally two weeks before graduation: If the opportunity isn't here, I'll go to it. So simple. But it had never occurred to me. I'll just go to it."

He's told this story before, but it's worth telling again, if only because it's never really ended. He was twenty-two when he left Missouri. He's forty-nine now and, though almost as famous for being a family man as he is for being an actor, he still does most of his talking about arrival or about moving on. Today it's about arrival: He has just gotten back to L. A. after spending spring break at his home north of Santa Barbara and camping the night before with his partner, Angelina Jolie, along with their children and a few of their friends. He's tired — "I woke up way too early and way too wet. But it was really fun. Six kids — six of 'em. Including one of our young ones. Angie as well. It's a great thing, a great thing. Then we drove nine kids three hours in an Econovan. The kind you take a crew in, with bench seats. No other vehicle is big enough. There's no car we fit in as a family. Everything else holds seven, eight tops. An SUV only holds seven. And we had nine — our six and three friends. Eleven, including us. It's no frills, man. I'd love to have it all tricked out, shag carpet on all four walls. But we live in a different world. We rent our vehicles. We don't want things so identifiable because we don't want to get followed. We spend a lot of time trying to evade the paparazzi. It's a big annoyance. But everything in life's a trade-off...."

Pitt has arrived back in town for work, and he is speaking from a low leather chair on the first floor of a building devoted to postproduction on the Paramount lot. He is wearing a long-sleeved black jersey, dad-sized jeans of such stiff and unbroken denim that their creases form a jagged outline, and black motorcycle boots. His hair, surfer-blond at the ends, is pulled into a short ponytail, and his whiskers, gray as an old dog's muzzle, cover a face resolutely golden in color and grainy in texture. He's wearing large sunglasses. When he takes them off, he reveals eyes that are blue and tired and wary, animated by alternating currents of curiosity and self-regard, and each bracketed by wrinkles that resemble a child's drawing of the sun. He has a neck full of gold chains, tokens of his aesthetic alliance to the seventies. He is bigger than you might think, and his ears are smaller, almost decorative. He is slightly pigeon-toed, with a rolling production of a walk suitable to a man who wears spurs. He has imposingly white teeth and a habit of sticking out his lower jaw when contemplating a question that makes him look as though he's imitating Brando in The Godfather. He has employed the same makeup artist for twenty-three years, Jean Black, and she applauds him for allowing his face to show its age, on- and off-camera, and indeed for using all the wear and tear as another kind of prop in his performances. "He's not fighting it," she says, and yet he is both rueful and amused that one of the things that attracted him to World War Z is that he didn't have to work out for it — that he could play a hero without having to hang a six-pack.

In obeisance to the dictates of his family, he has not worked in a week. Upstairs, however, on the third floor, a half dozen or so people in the employ of his production company, Plan B, have been laboring to complete World War Z until they've turned pale as mine workers or, more to the point, zombies. World War Z (out June 21) is Brad Pitt's "zombie movie," of course — a movie that he took on to see if he could make a movie that his sons could enjoy, a forthrightly commercial venture he hoped would serve as the foundation of his first commercial franchise. Instead, it turned into a notoriously "troubled production," fraught with reported cost overruns and creative differences. Pitt dismisses the notion that Z has been any more troubled than any other enormously troubled movie. He says that its notoriety came about "because of me — there's a big bull's-eye on my back." What he does admit is that Z is a "big, big bet" for both Plan B and Paramount, "with a lot of money on the table," and that he had a lot to learn about what it takes to make a big commercial movie. "You gotta be able to make it pop," he says. "You have to keep paying off, keep paying off, and in order to do that you have to be able to set the trap and snap it at the right moment. There are guys who are just great at that, and I didn't understand how technically sharp you have to be to pull off some of that stuff."

Pitt selected Marc Forster to direct the movie because he thought Forster would know how to keep building character even when his character is living up to his summertime obligation to kick some undead ass. Pitt wound up spending a lot of time finding people who knew how to keep building tension while Forster was building character and, in Pitt's words, "respected the rhythms" of action movies. He wound up being "more hands on" than he ever thought he would be, until World War Z was as much a Brad Pitt movie as it was a Marc Forster movie and belonged to him in a way no movie ever had. Though its $200 million budget came from disparate and anxious sources, he owned it — and that turns out to be how he likes making movies and everything else.

He says he left Missouri because of "an itch," and he says that the itch he felt then still guides him now. But what kind of itch is it, exactly? He makes movies. He makes wines. He makes furniture. He redesigns houses and works with an architectural firm to design apartment buildings and hotels. He's assembling whole neighborhoods in areas of abandonment and blight in three American cities and counting. He collects and races motorcycles. He has six kids. He's engaged to one of the most beautiful and famous and demanding women in the world. Quietly and very slowly, as if trying to remember the words of a childhood prayer, he describes his life this way:

"I have very few friends. I have a handful of close friends and I have my family and I haven't known life to be any happier. I'm making things. I just haven't known life to be any happier."

David Fincher has directed Brad Pitt in three movies: in 1995, Seven; in 1999, Fight Club; and in 2008, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. As such, he is privy to Pitt's spasms of self-doubt: "Two weeks before he starts shooting any given project, Brad calls and says, 'I've betrayed you. You have the wrong guy. Here's your opportunity to get rid of me now.' Then he moves on. He's not neurotic. He doesn't second-guess himself. He just needs to get that out of his system."

Fincher got to know Pitt before he was famous. "We'd meet at a diner or a Denny's in Hollywood and nobody bothered us. Three weeks into Seven, we needed security. I've been in situations with Brad where we go out for pizza and he has sunglasses on and a beard and a scarf and a baseball cap, and seven minutes later we can't go out the door. All that was starting on Seven, and it wasn't easy. There's a madness that surrounds you. And you're trying to navigate the world and to navigate your adult life, and there's all these other things vying for your attention."

Brad Pitt became a movie star before he had been able to make himself an actor. He knew it, and so did Fincher. What surprised Fincher, though, was how he responded. "In Seven, Brad was very anxious to go in and tear it up. He wasn't all that comfortable, and it worked amazingly for what the character of Mills needed to be."

Pitt's secret, then, was simple enough: He wasn't all that good. But he was already learning how to make his lack of experience and technique his secret weapon. Unlike some of his peers, he hadn't been acting since he was a child and had never felt born to perform. He hadn't had years of training; indeed, as he says, "my training is documented on film."

"Before you are anybody," Fincher says, "it's hard to be yourself." But Pitt had no choice. He had to learn how to be himself in front of the camera, because it wasn't easy for him to turn himself into someone else. He had to have a life offscreen if he wanted to make characters come to life onscreen and if, more to the point, he wanted to ask moviegoers to pay for the privilege of watching him. He already had fame, with its unrelenting artifice. Now he had to dive as deeply into it as a man could and find something like reality.

He does not call himself an actor. On forms, he lists his occupation as self-employed. "I learned that from Bruce Paltrow," he says, referring to the father of his first famous girlfriend. "I always liked it. It's a humble way to describe what we do." And if a stranger on a plane were to ask what he does for a living, he would say, "Well, I'd be very Midwest about it, very Missouri. I'd say, This and that. I'd say, I'm a dad, just like you."

His answer shows how hard he tries not to be an asshole and how hard it is for a person as famous as he is not to sound like one. In fact, he hesitates to identify himself as an actor not for reasons of humility. He hesitates to identify himself as an actor because he considers himself primarily an artist, a doer, a maker, a craftsman, a man who felt the first thrill of artifice not onstage but in high school shop class, drawing up plans. He hesitates to identify himself as an actor because he is forthrightly interested in leaving a legacy much larger than the legacy of his performances, which, however meaningful, are simply not as concrete as houses and chairs and wine or as endlessly real as children. He likes the idea of being something more than an actor and he likes the idea of being something less than an actor, and when you tell him that you sometimes don't look at him as an actor at all, he says, "That's a great compliment. I appreciate that, as long as..."

"As long as...?"

"Well, some people say that because they see me as a celebrity. And then I'd go, Aaaaaaghhh..."

He is, of course, an actor. He is, of course, also a celebrity, which is what allows him to reach for a life beyond acting and what allows him to be occasionally mocked for his efforts. Indeed, his efforts to transcend acting — to transcend celebrity itself — are part of what makes him a celebrity in the first place, a member in good standing of the modern celebrity class.

Once about license, fame is now about virtue; once considered corrupting, it is now seen as civilizing or even ennobling, the charming reprobates of old replaced by enlightened global citizens. Brad Pitt is not the only movie star with a production company, a charitable foundation, or an interest in wine making; he is not the only one who turns up both on the cover of Us Weekly and in the poorest and most remote corners of the world; he is not the only one whose eye is exquisite and whose palate is cultivated; he is not the only one who works only with directors advancing the art of filmmaking and who leaves his most indelible imprints in supporting comic roles; he is not the only one who is fiercely protective of his privacy and devoted to a small coterie of longtime friends; he is not the only celebrity who hates being called a celebrity, as if the word itself puts at risk the very meaning he is so ardently and unironically seeking.

What makes him different from some of his peers, however, is not the grandeur of his ambition or the purity of his soul but a variation on what Guy Ritchie contends — the fact that when you meet him, he seems like a good guy, or, as his friend Catherine Keener puts it, "a fun hang." Whether or not he succeeds in his current enterprise of being human on a very large scale matters less than his success at being human on a small one. Take a look at the instantly parodied ad he made for Chanel No. 5. It seems the last word in privileged existential exhibitionism. It seems an indulgence on the part of a man who speaks of fame in terms of responsibility rather than freedom, when, in fact, it's his freedom to be whoever he wants to be that makes him captivating. His manager, Cynthia Pett, talks about the ad as an opportunity — an opportunity to be Chanel's first male face, an opportunity to work with a director he admires, Joe Wright. But none of that sticks, because we've heard it before. What sticks, instead, is her straightforward report on what her client said when Chanel came calling with what was reported to have been a $7 million offer:

"It's the right moment and it's a classic brand and I have six kids to put through college.

He was the kind of guy who didn't finish anything. You know that guy — you might be that guy yourself. "I'd get so far," he says, "and then want to do something else. I mean, I'm two credits short of graduating college. Two credits. All I had to do was write a paper. What kind of guy is that? That guy scares me — the guy who always leaves a little on his plate. For a long time, I thought I did too much damage — drug damage. I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing. I spent years fucking off. But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity. It was a conscious change. This was about a decade ago. It was an epiphany — a decision not to squander my opportunities. It was a feeling of get up. Because otherwise, what's the point?"

A decade ago he was still married to Jennifer Aniston. He had already changed himself, begun to change himself, when he made Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Angelina Jolie. Jolie, he says, "didn't meet that person" — the one who left things undone. "Now I finish," he says. "It is very important to me to see things through." In Jolie, he met someone who was wired not only to see things through but also to double down on the opportunities — for altruism and everything else—that her fame afforded.

"I think Brad was ready to soar when he met Angie," says Jean Black, the makeup artist who has worked with him on almost every movie since Cool World in 1990. "This is not to say anything negative about Jennifer. I was part of that and I know that he and Jen are very good friends and he cared deeply for her. But in Angie he saw a very adventurous person who was grabbing on to life and taking it to its nth degree. It was intriguing because I felt Brad had that in him and wanted to unleash it."

Out of that also came both his family and his focus. "I always thought that if I wanted to do a family, I wanted to do it big," he says. "I wanted there to be chaos in the house." He does not mean instability. He is the product of an intact Bible Belt household; Jolie the product of a broken L. A. one — and it is as if they've joined forces to produce the family that he remembered and she imagined. They've both turned out to be maximalists in that way, proud of all they've taken on, proud of their sheer numbers, proud of the daily disorder that vindicates their common dream. "There's a constant chatter in our house, whether it's giggling or screaming or crying or banging. I love it. I love it. I love it. I hate it when they're gone. I hate it. Maybe it's nice to be in a hotel room for a day — 'Oh, nice, I can finally read a paper.' But then, by the next day, I miss that cacophony, all that life."

They have three children by birth, three children by adoption, and together they constitute, in Pitt's words, "one big mess." It is in keeping with his nature not to distinguish between them. "There's a different quality in being able to love someone who is not yours," says Eric Roth, an adoptive father who has been Pitt's friend since writing the screenplay for Benjamin Button and who is the godfather of Pitt and Jolie's nine-year-old son, Pax. "Brad has that quality in spades. There is no differentiation between his attention and affection for those kids. They're all part of his tribe; they're like a moving caravan."

The children are famous for traveling with their parents when their parents make movies, and the parents are famous for taking turns making movies so that one of them can be with the children while the other works. The children are homeschooled and travel with their teachers. They have all, by Pitt's estimation, been around the world three times. They have all, he says, "been thrown together," which is what has bred, from happenstance, a bond based not on blood but on necessity. "We suffer from a lack of privacy sometimes, but, on the other hand, we have to stick together. We are a little cut off from the herd, and so we have to look to each other for some kind of familiar experience."

We, of course, have no idea what the actual experience of the family formed by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie might be. We may assume — because they are, in fact, cut off from the herd, because they are so vulnerable and at the same time so protected, because they have been followed by strangers with cameras and sometimes feel hunted, because Pitt and Jolie are weirdly compounded in the public mind as "Brangelina," because they have sold photos of their biological offspring to the tabloids for millions of dollars and then given the money to charity, because they live in compounds in L. A. and Santa Barbara and a château in the South of France — that the dynamics of their family life might be as exotic as their circumstances. But that's why Pitt doesn't like being called a celebrity. When he left Missouri two credits short of graduation, his itch wasn't for fame — it was for this, a life so large that it would feel indisputably real. He just had to find fame in order to get it.

He wakes up before anyone else in the house, without an alarm. The first thing he does: "I brush my teeth. And then I go and make the coffee." He wears coveralls around the house and slip-on shoes. He cooks breakfast for his kids. He used to try to read the paper, but now he's taken a year off from it. He does that — devotes himself to yearlong projects and quests. He's now learning to paint. He likes to build models with his sons and draw with his daughters. He collects vintage and custom-made furniture and has more motorcycles than he can count. He has bodyguards but not a publicist. He is the rare Hollywood star you wouldn't want to fuck with. He didn't get on a plane until he was twenty-five. On his first trip to New York City, he squeezed into a subway car overcrowded with high school students and they pelted him with peanut shells. He used to smoke a lot of weed. He really likes pizza. He forgets faces but remembers everything you tell him. He's not a cock. He likes to send Catherine Keener e-mails with ideas for band names. When Jean Black sends him long e-mails, he sometimes writes back: "Huh?" He likes pranks, and once, on a private plane on the way back from the Toronto Film Festival, he drew a dick and balls on the face of his manager, Cynthia Pett, while she was asleep. With a Sharpie.

He goes to museums after hours and says, "It's a lovely experience walking around a museum by yourself." He once told his partner in the furniture business, Frank Pollaro, that he wanted to show him the design for a table, and when Pollaro came by his studio he saw forty different models of the table, all fabricated in wire. He's a perfectionist. He designed the hinges on the doors of the house in Los Angeles where he lives with his family. They are supposedly really nice hinges. It's supposedly a really nice house, or compound of houses. "I never wanted to be rich until I met Brad," says his friend, director Andrew Dominik. "Because he knows what to do with it. You go to the homes of most movie stars and they're like really, really nice hotel rooms. Brad lives in pieces of art. There's a breeze blowing through every window. As soon as you walk through the door, you feel stoned."

Bill and Jane Pitt still live in Springfield. Bill is, in his son's description, "stout. Big hands. Big Popeye forearms kind of guy. He grew up doing. 'You don't get someone to fix your car, you fix it yourself' — that kind of guy. He had to travel a lot when we were young. He ran that trucking company, worked his way up from nothing. He worked hard to give his family more than he had — that kind of thinking is very much my dad. But then, at one point, he said, 'I'm missing their childhoods' and took another position in the company so he could spend more time with us. A lateral move. It was very much a conscious decision, so maybe that's where I get that."

Two years ago, Pitt portrayed a man close to the age his father was when Brad was growing up in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. It is a film known for — notorious for — its far-flung metaphysical content, and Pitt's portrayal of a man enraged by his stifled promise as an artist and ennobled by his volatile love for his three sons gave it whatever grounding it had. Pitt's character is locked in struggle with his sons because he tries to embody something he can't articulate, and they hate him most when they inevitably disappoint him. He's not a big softie. And although Pitt says that "my father could be very tough on us in matters of integrity," he's not supposed to be Bill Pitt, either. "My father is a guy who calls to complain when people overcharge him for work on his house. He calls it 'the celebrity tax.' They think he makes what I make."

Jean Black has met Bill Pitt. "Brad's dad is definitely the powerhouse in that family. Jane's this wonderful spirit and Bill is a man of few words, but when he talks you're like, Uh huh. Conscious or not, Brad's performance in Tree of Life was the reincarnation of his dad in that way. And it was really difficult for him because he had to be very tough with those children. They weren't actors. They'd never done anything like that, and so much of the movie was unscripted. Brad had to be mean to them, and that's not the way he is with children. He made a point of doing things in between scenes to show how he felt about them.

"But they were terrified of him."

A few years ago, he made a movie about being a celebrity. It was called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It was based on a novel by Ron Hansen. Andrew Dominik sent the novel to Pitt. Pitt had contacted Dominik after his first movie, Chopper, and told him he wanted to work with him, but they had been looking for the right property. Pitt read Hansen's novel in twenty-four hours and said, "Let's do it." Jesse James was from Missouri. He was famous. Pitt could play a famous guy from Missouri.

"The general thing with Brad," Dominik says, "is that he's Brad. He's always Brad. If he plays someone who goes shopping at a supermarket, he has to act. Brad doesn't go to the supermarket. He's not an everyman, and that's the reason he's a star. You can dream on Brad."

In Jesse James, he played someone who "was kind of tired and kind of a bad guy. Brad could do that. He has a sadness about him as a person, and I'm not sure where it comes from. And when he uses his skills as an actor, he can make you feel it. Brad's a really mysterious guy. I don't know what he's thinking most of the time. He has a very generous perspective on the world, and I don't think it's something he's acquired because he's had good fortune in life. Brad hasn't become something from being famous. I think he was always that guy."

He was not, however, a guy who spent a lot of time with other people on the set. "The whole family thing on a movie set — the bonding — is something Brad doesn't do. He walks away from stuff, and he doesn't mourn it. But he's not scared, and that's unusual in Hollywood. You see, what's going on in any movie is that the person with the most power is the star. He's the one people worry about. The studios worry about him; the executives worry about him. But a lot of people still want to stay out of sticky political situations, because they want to cover their own ass. Brad won't. He'll do a lot of heavy lifting, and he'll use his muscle to go out and get what you want. He'll just go out and do it. I have a different situation. I'm an unknown entity. People expect to push you around, and unless someone comes to your defense you're in for a very unpleasant time. Brad came to my defense even when he disagreed with me.

"So I consider Brad a friend. But I don't go to his house and drink his beers and shit. There's always a process involved if you want to see Brad."

He still remembers the kid who made him not believe in God. "Grade school. He told me that when you meet the devil, you're going to hear three knocks. And then the band would start playing — 'Tubular Bells,' from The Exorcist.

"Wigged me out. Because of the belief I was steeped in, the mythology I was living in, I stayed awake for three months waiting for the three knocks. Then one night I heard them. I almost shit my pants. I thought I was done for. But the music didn't play. Nothing happened. I still have a little beef about that. I still take issue with that — the loss of three months."

He grew up among believers but was not a believer himself. His brother and his sister still live in Missouri and still believe. They worry about him — the state of his soul. "We differ greatly on those beliefs, and yet I can't change them and they can't change me," he says. "But we're family, man. We've always been family. We're linked by blood and experience. I'm sure they're saddened by me, and I get frustrated with them. But I love them, and at the end of the day if they need me or if they need anything, I'm there for them. Family."

He is not superstitious. Because he considers religion an organized form of superstition, he considers superstition an individual form of religion — a weakness of mind writ small. "If I ever start to feel it, I go the other way," he says. "I walk right under the ladder."

He always surprises himself, then, when he prepares to travel apart from his family. "I get superstitious. I've always been that way. I have to do a couple of things. I have to wear a couple of things. I have to have things with me. I'm not going to tell you what they are. But I've become that person when I do have to go by myself and leave the family behind. Because anything can happen, right?"

He plays that person in World War Z. Just as he plays a version of himself as a celebrity in Jesse James, he plays a version of himself as a father in Z — a man who has to leave his daughters in order to save the world. His daughters make him promise to come back and then to wear two bracelets so that he doesn't forget. He got that from life, as he got the song that's part of the soundtrack. It's an instrumental from Muse, and when he heard it he knew it was what he was looking for, because it sounded like "Tubular Bells," and it scared the shit out of him.

He doesn't scare easily. But World War Z is a compendium of the things that scare him. Having to leave his children. Music that sounds like "Tubular Bells." A movie that cost $200 million. And crowds of people he doesn't know. Hell, World War Z is about crowds, and so when they were filming, he had to hire a thousand extras, and one hot day in Malta they were all packed in an alley, and he was in the middle of them. They reeked to high heaven, and by God so did he, a man wearing bracelets to help him remember, surrounded by a thousand hungry faces he would immediately forget.

not mine.credit and source: ESQUIRE