Opinion: Mr. Pitt goes to Washington. Angelina here too.
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Hollywood’s power couple came to Washington today and politicians gave new meaning to the term star-struck. You’d think they’d never met a celebrity before.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) was all smiles as she welcomed Brad Pitt to Capitol Hill, where the 45-year-old actor was pressing his charity -- the ‘Make It Right’ cause to help build environmentally sustainable housing for low-income residents who lost their homes during Hurricane Katrina.
Introducing the Oscar-nominated actor to reporters, Pelosi said their meeting gave her ‘bragging rights’ with her children and grandchildren.
And House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) gushed that the session with Pitt, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the New Orleans-based ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ would make his family ‘so envious.’ Calling the actor ‘Brad,’ Clyburn said:
I did not realize when the speaker asked me to chair the Katrina-Rita Task Force that it would lead to my getting in a position to make my grandchildren so envious of me because this effort brought the two of us, Brad Pitt and myself, together.
Pitt’s significant other, Angelina Jolie, meanwhile was downtown filming a spy thriller, ‘Salt,’ with more Columbia Pictures production -- read celebrity sightings -- later in the year.
Earlier in the week, Jolie showed up at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum with sons Maddox, 6, and Pax, 4, causing fan frenzy and much camera clicking, according to the Washington Post, as they toured Space Hall, Skylab and the WWI and WWII exhibits. An envoy for the United Nations, she’s also attended a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations.
As for the movie, according to Variety, Jolie’s role was originally offered to Tom Cruise, but when his deal fell through -- talk was he wanted too much money -- Jolie expressed interest.
The title character is a CIA agent who’s accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy and must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence.
Screenwriters changed the character’s name from ‘Edwin A. Salt’ to ‘Evelyn A. Salt.’
And the rest, as they say in both Hollywood and Washington, is history.
-- Johanna Neuman.
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