Editor’s Note

How cool are you now, Brad?

If you sat down to write a character specifically for Brad Pitt, would that character be an idiot? A goof? A dork? A doofus?

Maybe it would. If we’re honest, maybe we’d all like to take one of the world’s most beautiful people down a notch on the coolness meter. But alas, most of us don’t have that power. We have to wait for a couple of filmmakers like the Coen Brothers to come along and fulfil our wishes (and apparently theirs).

Writing and directing sibs Joel and Ethan Coen say the idea for their new movie, the off-kilter caper comedy Burn After Reading, evolved from the characters up. They decided to write parts for a handful of actors with whom they wanted to work and then those characters led to the story of a fired CIA agent whose memoirs fall into the hands of a couple of scheming gym employees. Hilarity ensues.

They wrote roles for George Clooney, Richard Jenkins and Frances McDormand, all of whom they’d worked with before. And then they wrote one for someone they’d always wanted to work with, Brad Pitt.

People magazine’s two-time Sexiest Man Alive (1995, 2000) quickly agreed to the role, but was a bit taken aback by the character, one of those bonehead gym employees. The film’s production notes quote Pitt: “I didn’t think the guy would be a dumbbell, a gum-chewing, Gatorade-swilling, iPod-addicted bubble-brain. I said to Joel and Ethan, ‘He’s such an idiot.’”

Tee hee hee.

Surprisingly, this is Pitt’s first out-and-out goofball. I spent quite a while going over his filmography; I was sure I’d seen him play a dolt before, but must have been thinking of one of his alter egos from the Ocean’s movies, or maybe his jittery kook from Twelve Monkeys — but that character (which earned Pitt an Oscar nomination) was certainly no idiot.

Nope, this is Pitt’s first true knucklehead.

And, apparently, it wasn’t easy to turn this piece of beefcake into a meathead. Short of CGI, the crew used all of the tools at their disposal — gym shorts, crew socks, big white sneakers and that spiky hairdo with the big blond streak. The last hunky actor the Coen Brothers gave a bad hairdo was Javier Bardem in last year’s No Country for Old Men. And that haircut deserves at least some of the credit for Bardem’s Best Actor Oscar. Just saying.

In “What a Goof,” the Coens, Clooney and Pitt discuss their star-studded caper comedy.

James Franco goes from starring in last month’s pot comedy Pineapple Express to a small role in this month’s Richard Gere romance Nights in Rodanthe. Why? Franco explains in “High on Drama”.

And check out our Fall-Holiday Movie Preview, a handy guide packed with pictures and info on the must-see movies from now until New Year’s.

Marni Weisz, editor