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Pitt Pauses Career To Help New Orleans

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By STACEY PLAISANCE, The Associated Press

Published: December 16, 2007

NEW ORLEANS - Forget about the movies, Brad Pitt is all about resurrecting New Orleans.

The actor says he's put his Hollywood career on hold, with no film projects underway, while doing all he can to help the city recover from Hurricane Katrina.

"This is my project," he said earlier this month, sitting at a table on a tiled slab where Katrina's flood pushed a house off its foundation in the Lower 9th Ward more than two years ago. He said he and Angelina Jolie and their children planned to spend the holidays in New Orleans.

The slow recovery from Katrina's destruction in August 2005 has attracted many celebrities, among them Sean Penn, Denis Leary, Kirstie Alley, Ellen Degeneres and New Orleans native musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis.

Few stand out as much as Pitt, who has made a personal and financial commitment to rebuilding shattered neighborhoods.

He and Jolie bought a home in the French Quarter. He has pledged more than $5 million to rebuild one of the city's most devastated neighborhoods and has spent countless hours listening to residents' needs.

"I believe in what's going on down here," he said after the launch earlier this month of Make It Right, the Pitt-backed project to rebuild 150 homes in the Lower 9th Ward, an impoverished area that was especially devastated by Katrina.

Less than 10 percent of its population has returned, one reason Pitt has launched two projects to build affordable, environmentally friendly homes.

Make It Right calls for construction of its first house to start by summer. Pitt has pledged to match up to $5 million in contributions. So far, $3.5 million has been raised.

Pitt, 43, was born in Oklahoma and raised in Missouri, but is no stranger to New Orleans. He filmed two movies here - "Interview With a Vampire" in the 1990s and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in 2006 and early 2007. "Button" is due out next year.

Pitt says his passion to help the people of New Orleans is simple: It's the right thing to do. He said the storm "illuminated the fact that there's a portion of our society that we're not looking after."

Pitt said Make It Right and another project he launched last year with Global Green USA will help fill the need for affordable housing while also rebuilding with energy saving, environmentally friendly materials.

Both projects have attracted national supporters, including Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. Pitt hopes the city's recovery will be a focal issue of the 2008 campaign.

"I don't want it to be used so much as a whipping boy for past mistakes, but as a real proving ground for policies set forth, meaning education, health reform," he said. "If it's going to work, it'll work here, and this place certainly needs it."

Many New Orleans residents - even those who aren't getting a house through Pitt's projects - say they are grateful for his generosity.

"He's bringing my neighbors home," said Valerie Schexnayder, 61, who lives in a federally issued trailer on her Lower 9th Ward land, where Katrina washed her house away.

"Even if it doesn't include my house, I think it's great what he is doing," she said.

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