What would Hollywood be without Brad Pitt? He’s half of the powerhouse Brangelina couple and we love him for his famous roles in movies like Interview with the Vampire and Fight Club; not to mention for being a total Hollywood hottie (those abs to die for).
But there was a time when Pitt had no intentions of being an actor. Once upon a time, he was a college student at j-school.
In an interview with talk show host Terry Gross on the NPR program Fresh Air, Pitt talked about his days as an undergraduate at the University of Missouri where he studied journalism and then – unexpectedly– dropped out to pursue his dreams of acting.
“I was just investigating for myself,” he said. “They have one of the best j-schools in the country. It just came to the time of graduation and everyone… all my friends were committing to jobs, and I just realized I was not ready for that yet. I packed up my car. I didn’t graduate. I had two weeks left and I moved out to L.A.”
When asked why he didn’t simply finish off the two weeks, Pitt replied, “I just felt I was done; I was done with it. I knew where I wanted to go. I had a direction. I always liked those moments of epiphany when you have the next destination.”
Jim Romenesko, a web writer for the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based non-profit school for journalists, researched Pitt’s last assignment as a student at Mizzou j-school before he dodged graduation and jumped into his battered Nissan for the long drive to California. So after digging in the student newspaper’s archives, what was that big assignment?
Apparently, it was a “hunk calendar” for the school’s advertising class also known as Journalism 336.
Henry Hager, a professor who taught Pitt in the 1980s, talked to The Maneater about the calendar assignment.
“He wanted my professional estimate on (the calendar),” Hager said. “I think he might have been trying to use that with the professor. He told me that she thought he had done the work too fast.”
According to Hager, school officials have given Pitt the chance to earn the two credits he’s missing. But Pitt has yet to take them up on the offer and between starring in the latest blockbusters and his multiple charity projects, it’s not likely he will any time soon.