That Brad Pitt is hot is the ultimate “the sky is blue” opinion. We all know the sky is blue, but haven’t you ever been bowled over on a sunny day by how incredibly blue it is? Pitt, now 56, tends keeps his newsboy-capped head down between films, but when he comes up for a breath of air, we’re all reminded, almost violently, of how attractive he is.
One of those moments happened today when W magazine debuted a video of Pitt being impossibly charming. He discusses, in his gravelly twang of a voice, his first kiss, crushes, and early acting jobs. Throughout, he fixes the camera with a smoldering gaze, his face dimpling up when he smiles. The five-minute clip threw the Cut staff into an unexpected state of disarray and contemplation.
Sangeeta: This video is very nice to watch.
Stella: God, why is he so hot and likable? I hate men who make me feel this powerless. His hotness has a gravitational pull that I feel must never be encountered.
Callie: Yeah, this is insane. I normally don’t care about him at all, but this is so charming. And I agree, whenever there is a man who is handsome and charming, I get angry and defensive. Leave me be.
Stella: Don’t be so hot as to upend me.
Callie: Right! I’m just trying to go about my life.
Kerensa: I never got his hotness until recently, and my friends were like …well, that’s why you are gay.
Izzy: I have loved him forever, and he’s not even remotely my type. The three minutes in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood when he takes off his shirt on the roof were the best part of the movie by far.
Sangeeta: There were gasps in my theater.
Stella: I think if I met him in person I would … die. First, I’d have the irrational urge to say something very mean, and then I’d drop dead.
Izzy: That’s cool of you. I would die in silence.
Kelly: “I curse the day you were born,” like Charlotte to Big.
Bridget: Brad’s hotness is offensive because it’s also so perfect and symmetrical. Plus, it gives you no intellectual credit to think Brad Pitt is hot. It is the most normative opinion in the Northern Hemisphere.
Stella: Sure, sure. But does this urge to be mean to hot men happen to other people, or is it just me?
Madeleine: I also get mean to people I’m too attracted to.
Stella: How has that worked out, Maddie?
Madeleine: Mmm, mixed results. It’s not something I like about myself.
Stella: Have any of us ever dated A TRULY HOT PERSON? The kind of person everybody thinks is hot?
Matthew: I once made out with a male model and then I felt like he was following me everywhere, but actually he was just on large billboards around the city.
Kerensa: I dated a really hot actor and it made me very anxious.
Wendy: I had a fling with someone very hot. Let’s just say an actor.
Madeleine: OMG … was it Brad Pitt?
Callie: In New York, there are 80 hot women to every one hot man. That’s why it’s so exciting when you find one.
Amanda: I dated a very hot person. He was a tattoo artist from Brazil. He was so hot I think of him often, but I try not to date hot people.
Stella: Not to get all pickup artist–y, but I dated a Hot Person™ whose art was so bad that I could thus control myself. I clearly need therapy.
Madeleine: I feel like I’ve had a few conversations with people who are like, “I’m seeing this person, but their art is bad and I don’t know how to deal with it.”
Kelly: That is definitely a thing.
Kerensa: That’s ALWAYS happening. I dated a girl who had terrible art. Also dated so many unfunny comedians. The worst.
Katie: Wow, I could never. You guys are brave.
Hannah: My BF has … a podcast.
Bridget: Hannah, our thoughts are with you. (It’s a good podcast, but yes, it’s a podcast.)
Callie: I’m commuting to the office. If I see a hot person on the subway, I will scream.
Stella: At them.
Callie: Of course.