Brad Pitt Opens Up about Fatherhood

November 19, 2008 1:10 PM

Brad Pitt may appear to lead the glamorous red carpet life of a celebrity but at home his six kids keep him real.

“I’m hard as nails,” he said on an episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that airs today. “I’m impervious to poo, snot, urine, vomit. You can’t get me. You cannot break me down. In the beginning it was like, ‘Oh God, how do they vomit that much?’ Now it’s like, ‘Look, that’s half a hot dog.’”

More serious, he added, “(Having children is) a great mirror for yourself, for how you are, how you react. They make me a better person. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever taken on. I can’t imagine my life without them.”

Pitt opened up to Winfrey about his life as a father while promoting his upcoming film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

He talked about newborn twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline – saying the boy looks like him and the girl, like mother Angelina Jolie – and how he and Jolie initially tried to manage without hired help.

“In the beginning, it was mainly us doing both shifts,” Pitt said. Now, he said, “We have help in the night because we want to be there for the others ones in the day. But not every night.”

“Hats off to all the parents out there,” Pitt added.

Asked by a viewer if he’s ever been alone with all six children, he admitted, “Four is usually my limit on my own, so far. I hope to advance.”

Pitt doesn’t shirk from being the disciplinarian either, except when it comes to the girls. “The girls do no wrong,” he said. “The boys I have to pull them up. We have the time out chair. I end up in it.”

He’s also given up on quick outings with the kids. “We don’t go to the mall. It’s like a half an hour just to get everyone buckled in and make sure they’ve got their snacks, and Z.Z. (3-year-old Zahara) has got a blanket and Shiloh’s got her silky. Angie’s militant about it. She’s right on top of it. Thank God, because I’m always forgetting something.”

Pitt also couldn’t resist telling funny stories about his children. He said 2-year-old Shiloh’s latest quirk is “she only wants to be called John. John or Peter. So it’s a Peter Pan thing. So we’ve got to call her John. ‘Shi, do you want …’ – ‘John. I’m John.’ And then I’ll say, ‘John, would you like some orange juice?’ And she goes, ‘No!’ So, you know, it’s just that kind of stuff that's cute to parents, and it's probably really obnoxious to other people.”

At the top of the show, Winfrey asked the question that has been the latest subject of the rumor mill: will Pitt and Jolie have more children? “Probably,” he said.

When Winfrey told him, “you seem happier than you’ve ever been,” Pitt replied, “I daresay.”

Pitt is not the only celebrity talking up the joys of parenthood. Nicole Kidman, who gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose four months ago, suggested that she may take a break from acting to expand her family.

“In terms of my future as an actor, I don't know,” she said last night at the premiere of her new film, “Australia.” “I've had some great opportunities and I may just choose to have some more children.”

If her greying roots were any indication, clearly Kidman has more important things on her mind.

Luchina Fisher

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