After four different acting nominations spread across nearly three decades,Brad Pittfinally won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor this past weekend for his role as Cliff Booth inOnce Upon a Time… in Hollywood. Pitt had been tearing up the awards circuit prior to that, winning Supporting Actor awards at the BAFTAs, the SAG awards, and the Golden Globes, among others. Pitt peppered his various acceptance speeches with quips that got a lot of media attention, and at the Oscars on Sunday he wanted to give credit where credit was due.
As reported by Variety, Pitt said that while he wrote the acceptance speeches himself, he had some “very, very funny” friends help him punch up his thank-yous with “some laughs.” Those friends include comedianJim JefferiesandReal Time with Bill MaherwriterBob Oschack, which totally checks out. If you want to toss some one-liners into your speech, it makes sense to go to your comedy friends for help. But the real head scratcher Pitt credited with helping him come up with jokes was Oscar-winning directorDavid Fincher. You know, the guy who madeSe7en.
“My man Fincher, we trade barbs every week,” Pitt said of the filmmaker, who has directed him in three films includingFight ClubandThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which Pitt was nominated for his first Best Actor Oscar. And while Fincher has spent decades building a reputation for being a relentlessly meticulous artist typically working with dark subject matter, it’s easy to forget thatFight Clubis pretty damn funny.
The barbs that made their way into Pitt’s speeches are pretty safe late night monologue stuff, like telling hisOnce Upon a TimecostarLeonardo DiCaprio“I would’ve shared the raft”, a reference to DiCaprio’s fate inTitanicthat the internet has been howling about pretty much since the beginning of the internet. He also included a Brexit joke in his acceptance speech at the BAFTAs, cracking, “Hey Britain, heard you just became single — welcome to the club.” (That speech was read by Pitt’s otherOnce Upon a Timecostar,Margot Robbie, which no doubt added to its charm.) One might even argue that they stray into the territory of Dad Jokes. But they’re fun gags, and it’s nice that Pitt didn’t want to take credit for his buddies’ work, unlike his character inTwelve Monkeys.
For more on the Oscars, check out our list of theBest and Worst Oscar Moments.
