It was on this date, December 18, 1963, that American actor and film producer Brad Pitt was born. A leading man nominated for five Academy Awards and five Golden Globes, and winning one of the latter, Pitt is noted for commercial film successes in Troy (2004) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and Academy Award-nominated performances in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011).

It was during the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that Pitt met and began a long-term relationship with American actress Angelina Jolie, with whom he shares an indifference to religion. Born in Oklahoma, Pitt had shaken off his fundamentalist beliefs by the time he entered college. “When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self,” he says. “I had faith that I'm capable enough to handle any situation. There's peace in understanding that I have only one life, here and now, and I'm responsible.” In a July 2009 interview for the German magazine Bild, Pitt was asked if he believes in God. He answered, smiling, “No, no, no!” Asked if his soul is spiritual, Pitt replied, “No, no, no! I’m probably 20 per cent atheist and 80 per cent agnostic. I don’t think anyone really knows. You’ll either find out or not when you get there, until then there’s no point thinking about it.”