Despite knowing nothing about baseball, Brad Pitt is on the cover of Sports Illustrated for his new film Moneyball. The movie is about the Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, who was able to build a competitive baseball team with a low payroll through sabermetrics analysis. According to critics Pitt’s performance may win him his first Oscar, let’s just hope Pitt hasn’t heard of the Sports Illustrated jinx...
On getting the SI cover: “I was just happy to do Sports Illustrated. To do something other than the fashion-y things, for something I respect, is much more fun.”
On his background in baseball: “It’s shameful how little I know about baseball…. I’m amazed they let me do this movie…. Baseball and I didn’t get along that well. I wrestled one year [in high school]. I dove one year. Everything but baseball.”
On what initially drew Brad to the Moneyball story: “I’m a sucker for the underdog story.”
On the end goal of the film: “What we were trying to do is tell an unconventional story in the Trojan horse of a conventional baseball movie.”
*Other athletes who have been on the cover of SI: Bob Hope, Stephen Colbert, Steve McQueen and Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, and Presidents Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
