Brad Pitt first learned of a Hollywood acting class while driving a limo for strippers
Two-time Academy Award-winning actor and producer Brad Pitt was a college senior just two credits away from graduating. Instead of finishing, though, he packed up his beat-up silver Datsun. In the late 80s, Pitt left the University of Missouri for Los Angeles, California.
“I had $300 to my name…I just remember saying, ‘Yeah!’ every time I would drive past a state line. I was so excited,” Pitt recalled to Karen Bystadt. She published “Before They Were Famous” (1996), a collection of her photos and interviews of stars before they made it in Hollywood.
Upon arrival in LA, Brad Pitt worked several odd jobs, including a stint driving a limo
“I did anything that was flexible, so I could figure out how to get into this frickin business. I started doing extra work the first week I was here. I mean, I didn’t even know you had to have a headshot.”
Pitt says he dressed up like a chicken, served as a delivery boy, and even drove a limo transporting strippers to bachelor parties.
The actor and producer couldn’t take the driving gig for long, though. “I did that for about two months and then I couldn’t hang with it.”
Literally right before permanently quitting the limo, a new stripper told Pitt about a local acting class that her friend, Charlie Sheen, also attended.
Pitt decided to go to the class. There, he met an aspiring actress who landed an audition with a talent agency. “She asked me if I’d do a scene we prepared for class in front of all these agents. I said, ‘Yeah, I guess so, whatever.’ Boom. I got signed.”
Everyone starts “somewhere”
As such, the friendly suggestion Brad Pitt followed from his days driving a limo for strippers soon landed him uncredited roles in three 1987 films, including “Man at beach with drink,” “Waiter,” and “Partygoer/Preppie guy at fight.”
Of course, other celebrities have pre-fame car stories, too. Hilary Swank and her mom lived in their Oldsmobile briefly after landing in LA. Octavia Spencer’s bird-poop-covered vehicle once broke down on Sunset Boulevard, where Keanu Reeves helped her push it out of traffic…13 years before she won an Oscar.
