re: Brad Pitt as an actor?

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He's basically the same dude put into various situations.

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This affects most leads to a large degree, because they're being paid to be themselves molded into the role - of course this excepts the malleable guys like Pacino, Deniro, Hoffman and character guys asked to do lead roles (usually easier for them) like Spacy or PSH (RIP).

But, Hanks has a lot of range when you go back to the beginning - he's perfect in Bachelor Party, Splash!, even Money Pit - then also shows what he can do in things like Philadelphia, Green Mile, Forrest Gump - and even when he plays "himself" - SPR, Apollo 13 - he devotes a lot of effort to making himself look and sound right for period.

Dude may not be Olivier - I get that. I might even agree he's a little overrated, but he's also one of the best acting leads of the past 30 years.

So there's all of that.