Brad Pitt Got Banned From China After Making Them Furious With His $131M Movie
Brad Pitt is undoubtedly one of the most influential and powerful actors in Hollywood. Although he started his professional career as an actor in 1987, he did not gain recognition until he starred in Ridley Scott’s 1991 adventure road drama Thelma and Louise.
Over the years, Brad Pitt has appeared in movies of various genres such as the romantic crime Mr. and Mrs. Smith in which he starred alongside his ex-wife Angelina Jolie, the horror film World War Z, the action movie Bullet Train, and many others including the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet which caused to him get banned from visiting China.
Brad Pitt Was Not Allowed To Visit China
After starring in breakthrough movies such as Interview with the Vampire, SE7EN, and 12 Monkeys, Brad Pitt played the role of Austrian mountaineer and Schutzstaffel sergeant Heinrich Harrer in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s biographical war drama Seven Years in Tibet based on Harrer’s memoir of the same name.
A part of Brad Pitt’s training in Italy and Austria also included climbing the Dolomites and wearing lederhosen with his co-star David Thewlis. Despite all of this, the People’s Republic of China was not impressed with the movie.
Political reasons also managed to bring in criticism of the movie as it not only showed the Chinese military in a negative light but also painted a positive image of the 14th Dalai Lama. Consequently, Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, and director Jean-Jacques Annaud were banned from visiting China.
Although there is no confirmed duration of these bans, Pitt accompanied his then-wife Angelina Jolie on Maleficent‘s promotional trip to China in 2014. Two years later, he visited China once again to promote his romantic war drama Allied.
Seven Years in Tibet Was A Learning Experience For Brad Pitt
Seven Years in Tibet follows Heinrich’s life in Tibet from 1944 to 1951 and his time with the 14th Dalai Lama. In addition, it chronicles Tibet’s invasion of China during World War II. The movie also stars David Thewlis in the role of Heinrich’s fellow Austrian partner Peter Aufschnaiter.
When Interview Magazine‘s photographer Steven Klein asked Brad Pitt about his experience of filming a movie, The Big Short star said:
For an audience, it’s two hours, but for me, it’s a half year of living. And this one particularly. Being in a different culture for so long, you couldn’t help but walk out of there with something… I didn’t know anything about Tibet, really, and the first images in my head were of Shangri-la, and that’s not it at all. You just get these notions of an oasis in the middle of this violent world, but it’s the people who make it a Shangri-la, not the land.
Brad Pitt also said that making movies is always a learning experience. The movie premiered at the Toronto Fim Festival in September 1997 before its official release the following month. Upon its release, it grossed $131 million worldwide and was not received too well by the critics. It also managed to get Pitt nominated for the Stinkers Bad Movie award for Most Annoying Fake Accent.
