Like old buddies reuniting for a happy hour at the corner bar, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill enter the room already gabbing and laughing.
What could the model-handsome middle-aged half of the celebrity beast known as Brangelina be discussing so intently with the Gen-Y whiz kid who was Russell Brand's reluctant drug mule in Get Him to the Greek?
Maybe how their new film, Moneyball, which opens today, puts a whole new backroom-negotiating spin on the baseball genre by doing with spreadsheets what sexy Bull Durham did with bedsheets?
REVIEW: 'Moneyball' hits the sweet spot
Or how their fashion and hairstyle choices reflect their shrewdly balanced jock vs. geek pairing on-screen? It's suburban-dad chic for floppy-locked Pitt, 47, who is youthful yet has a penchant for Cosby-esque sweaters. And neo-conservative business casual for close-cropped Hill, 27, belying both his age as well as his foul-mouthed dweeb antics as a member of comedy king Judd Apatow's clown posse.
Or, perhaps they could be debating just how boring Pitt's life was during his years with ex-wife Jennifer Aniston? That's doubtful, however, considering the actor has since issued a denial about similar statements after his foot landed in his mouth during a chat with Parade.
Instead, Hill is explaining the joys of the now-departed cult sitcom Arrested Development to an intensely fascinated Pitt.
"It won Emmys and it was so acclaimed," says Hill, who co-starred in 2007's Superbad with series regular Michael Cera. "It was always a counterculture thing. I think they are going to try to make a movie out of it."
Pitt: "Oh, great."
Hill: "It's so funny."
Pitt: "And the talent that came out of that show … "
Hill: "Oh, my God. Every character is so great. I go back and forth on who my favorite character is all the time."
Enough. Time to pitch Moneyball, boys. Conceived in 2003, when the book it is based on came out, this once-troubled project was all but dead just two years ago.
But after surviving three directors (Capote's Bennett Miller eventually took the reins) and several writers (Steven Zaillian and The Social Network's Aaron Sorkin now share credit), the movie hung in there in large part because of the unwavering loyalty of superstar lead Pitt.
This is one real-life sports drama that features minimal on-field action. Instead, its plot pivots on a mathematical formula that upends how baseball talent is usually measured.
Yet the film has been handily winning superlatives from critics and is even seen as a strong Oscar contender. A glance at the Rotten Tomatoes scoreboard online shows an enviable 90% positive rating.
Hill plays a cherubic geek
Many of the plaudits are aimed squarely at the unlikely partnership at the story's core. Pitt funnels the golden-boy aura he shares with onetime mentor Robert Redford, his director on 1992's A River Runs Through It, into his role as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's. His personal failure to capitalize on his early potential when he was a player makes the under-financed team's inability to compete against richer opponents all the more painful.
Hill's Peter Brand is the wild card as Beane's unlikely guru, a chubby and cherubic Ivy Leaguer with an economics degree and a deep knowledge of sabermetrics, which uses on-base percentage instead of batting average as a key way to judge players. Hill's performance is gracefully nuanced compared with his previous comedy work and provides a gentle contrast to Pitt's angsty, pent-up slow burns. Any devotee of the holiday TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will smile when Hill's wonky numbers cruncher lovingly compares the A's lineup of affordable rejects to "the island of misfit toys."
Despite their odd-couple chemistry, the two are more eager to discuss almost anything but Moneyball. That includes how Pitt happened to bump into Inglourious Basterds castmate Michael Fassbender— whose turn as a sex addict in Shame was the talk of the Toronto and Venice film fests this year — at a festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia (presumably while lady love Angelina Jolie was working on her directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey).
Hill: "You ran into him by accident?"
Pitt: "I didn't know he was going to be there. He and his dad had been taking a tour through Europe on bikes."
Hill: "No way."
Turns out there might be a couple of topics they would rather avoid. One is weight loss. While Pitt gobbles a hefty wrap sandwich, Hill is asked about how he slimmed down with the aid of a nutritionist and personal trainer for his role in the upcoming movie version of 21 Jump Street.
He must have lost more than the 40 pounds that has been reported. "I don't know how much I weighed to begin with, and I don't know how much I weigh now,'' he says. "My goal wasn't about numbers."
Interjects Pitt, "All the male models he admired were hovering at a 31-32 waist, so that became the target number."
Adds Hill: "Now I'm at 29, so what are you going to do?"
Asked if he is concerned about no longer fitting into his usual plus-sized roles, Hill suddenly looks crestfallen while Pitt chivalrously comes to his defense.
"It's so beyond that," says the mega-fan of the Apatow brand of raunchy R-rated humor, who appears to be more in awe of Hill than Hill is of him.
"I remember being bowled over by Superbad. The most innovative, big leaps in what we do come from Jonah and his cohorts like Danny McBride and Russell Brand. Not only are they pushing the boundaries of irreverence, which is hilarious, but it is grounded in this humanity, this pain, this pathos, that goes beyond what we think of as comedy. There is an openness to what these guys are doing. They aren't hiding anything. It is so beyond any kind of stereotype."
Hill finally chimes in: "What you said is silly. I'm not offended in any way. With the part I play in this movie, it wouldn't have mattered what size I was. You just play people. I just try to do a good job when they cast me in this movie."
So who's idea was it to hire Hill? "The studio forced him on us," says Pitt with a grin. "For marketing reasons."
Even Pitt loves underdogs
Moneyball's director has always considered Hill as much more than a mere comic foil.
"Casting Jonah did not feel like an avant-garde, crazy idea," says Miller, who first met the actor through a mutual friend, Capote's Catherine Keener, who was in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Cyrus with Hill. "Maybe because I knew him and knew how smart he is. He is an agile, original thinker with an unbelievable memory. He's not like the funny guy who is always on. Many of the qualities you see in the movie are evident if you know him. Also, I knew he wanted to stretch the boundaries of what he was given the opportunity to do before."
Pitt's pet peeve seems to center around an observation he hears all too often: How can a two-time Oscar nominee who makes millions, lives with one of the most beautiful actresses in the world and ranks among the sexiest and most powerful stars in Hollywood relate to an underdog tale like Moneyball?
"People forget I came from Oklahoma and Missouri with just a few bucks in my pocket," he says. "Every time we go into a film, it's a miracle. It's an underdog endeavor in a way. You are putting everything you have out there. So for whatever reason, perceived or real, I love an underdog story, I relate to an underdog story. I root for the underdog."
Miller says that despite surface differences, it makes sense that Pitt could be believable as a man up against major odds. "Billy Beane had this public face and private reality," he says. "Same with Brad. You can perceive someone as being very successful, but sometimes that public image can belie a reality that is less shiny. Often, successful people can never purge themselves of the need to prove something to the world."
As Hill attempts to do more drama, who does he admire? "My heroes are Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray. Those are the two guys I look up to as an actor. Guys who do comedy and drama both, seamlessly."
Stage-whispers Pitt: "And Brad Pitt, obviously."
Hill laughs. "He's somewhere down the list. No. 98 favorite actor. Ever. In the world." He then clarifies: "I'm a massive fan of Brad's, as a human being and an actor. My favorite Brad film? I don't know. I love Brad in …
"Legends of the Fall," says Pitt, referencing his Fabio-haired hunk-in-the-wilderness classic from 1994.
"I just call it The Fall," says Hill, running with the joke. "My friends and I just call it The Fall. We say, 'Hey, it's Saturday night. Midnight. Should we throw in The Fall and have a couple beers or what?'"
After naming his real favorites —Fight Club, True Romance and the mumbling Irish gypsy boxer in Snatch— Hill suddenly comes around and grows serious about the man next to him.
"I want to say in all honesty that I think Brad is in a really cool, insanely cool, creative place right now. I thought TheTree of Life and Moneyball are an insanely cool combination of, like, a special creative space. That's all I'm saying."
Says Pitt: "It's been a good year."
"Finally," says Hill, "you got one."
Adds Pitt: "After so many bad years."
Hill shrugs. "My whole life is a backhanded compliment. 'You look great. You used to look like (crap).'"
They leave as they came in. Talking and laughing.
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