Los Angeles: Brad Pitt was ready to embrace his Ad Astra role of an astronaut looking for his missing father in the outer reaches of the solar system.
"James and I, James Gray the director, have been friends for a couple of decades at least and then some and had always been pretty open in our conversations about our missteps, and stupidity, really," he explains.
"You know when you pick a part, it's already got to be in your mind. You already got to be leaning in that direction and it speaks to your interest at that time and that was certainly true of 'Ad Astra' for me."
The sci-fi epic, directed by James Gray (The Lost City of Z), follows Pitt as astronaut Roy McBride on a voyage through space, as he unfurls mind-expanding secrets and mysteries that question the nature of human existence and Earth's place in the cosmos.
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It's also about the ways men, fathers and sons, connect to one another. Pitt says he's noticed a generational change.
Ad Astra is one of 21 films competing for the Venice Film Festival's top prize, the Golden Lion.
Director James Gray said it was "a huge honor" to be part of the line-up.
"This is one of the great festivals of the world, one of the big three as they say and you feel privileged to be able to show a film of yours here. I feel very lucky."
The film also stars Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tyler, Ruth Negga and Donald Sutherland.
With inputs from APTN
