Ad Astra Actor Brad Pitt On Dealing With Alcoholism: Turned To It To Avoid Tough & Painful Feelings

James Gray's Ad Astra, the sci-fi fiction adventure starring Brad Pitt in the lead, is releasing today. The film sees Pitt as Major Roy McBride, who sets on a mission to find his long-lost father, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Ad Astra which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, was highly praised for skilfully bringing forth a mind-blogging concept.

Ahead of the film's release, Pitt in conversation with Christiane Amanpour from CNN, spoke in detail about Ad Astra and also revealed a few lesser-known facts about his personal life. In the interview, Pitt opened up on dealing alcoholism, and how he overcame the issue.

He stated, "I was running to things to avoid. To avoid tough feelings, painful feelings, I just didn't know how to deal with them. And looking for anything I found that I use for escape, to escape those kinds of, I guess difficult feelings, I don't know how better to describe it. I mean that can be anything, that can be drugs, booze, Netflix, snacks, anything. I don't want to at this point be running from anything. I want to sit in it, I want to feel it, I want to get through the rough night. And I found in doing so, you just come out the other side with a more profound understanding of yourself and a greater gratefulness for those in your life."

Talking about the theme of Ad Astra and his experience of working in the film, Pitt said, "On one hand you get older and you just get tired of protecting yourself or of having any secrets, you just want to get on with it. And we wanted to get on with it in this film in a way. I mean, we all carry, I think, great pains, great regrets, we've all experienced loss, we've all experienced great loneliness at times."

"And we're good at packing that away, not dealing with it, some are really good at getting through it and coming out the other side in a more well-rounded, I think, confident and loving human being. So, we just wanted to like, no holds barred, let's just go get it out there," he added.