Brad Pitt is having a hard time coming to grips with a potential Donald Trump presidency.
In an interview with novelist Marlon James for the New York Times‘ T magazine this week, the 52-year-old Oscar-winner said that having grown up in rural Oklahoma, “which leans more toward a Trump voice,” he tries to understand the motivation driving supporters of the Republican presidential candidate.
“Man, I never thought [Brexit] would happen. Same way I can’t bring myself to think that Trump will be in charge,” Pitt told James. “In the simplest terms, what brings us together is good, and what separates us is bad.”
Pitt said that he is reminded of a quote from his 2015 film The Big Short, about the 2008 global financial crisis, when considering Trump supporters: “When things are going wrong and we can’t find the reason for it, we just start creating enemies,” he said, citing illegal immigrants as an example.
Pitt added that he understands at least some of the Trump phenomenon; that when an outsider voice comes in and expresses frustration or anger with the status quo, “that’s the part that hooks into the DNA.”
“What I’m most hopeful about is that we’re a global neighborhood now, and we start to understand each other more and more — and yet, you see this reactionary push for isolation and separation again,” he continued. “A Trump supporter is fighting against just about everything. What does he even mean, take our country back? Would someone please explain that to me? Where’d it go?”
Pitt has generally refrained from weighing in on presidential politics this year, though the actor has in the past expressed support for President Obama. Pitt and wife Angelina Jolie met with Obama in 2012 to discuss the celebrity couple’s charity work.
In November, before the presidential race was in full swing, Pitt offered up some advice to American voters.
“Don’t be so emotional,” the actor said. “Don’t see the world from our own backyard. Understand everyone has self-interest and that we are now in a community. We are not an island and we don’t always know best so let’s check ourselves.”
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