Brad Pitt WORKSHEET A

The actor Brad Pitt probably makes a lot of other men envious, not least because he earns
thousands of dollars for a day’s work and is always in celebrity magazines’ lists of “the world’s
most beautiful people.”

He hasn’t always had a glamorous life, however. Before he got his first break in Hollywood, for
example, his jobs in Los Angeles included trying to attract customers to a restaurant by standing
outside wearing a chicken costume.

Pitt was born in Oklahoma in 1963, and was interested in movies from an early age. At high
school, in Missouri, his other hobbies included golf, tennis, and swimming. He began studying
journalism in college, but dropped out when he decided he wanted to try to become a professional
actor.

After some minor roles in various Hollywood movies, Pitt became famous in the mid-1990s by
playing a police detective in the crime thriller Seven and a psychiatric patient in the science-
fiction movie Twelve Monkeys. Since then he’s been in one successful movie after another,
including Fight Club (one of a number of movies in which he plays unconventional, slightly
dangerous characters), Ocean’s Eleven (about a gang of thieves who plan to steal money from
Las Vegas casinos), and Troy (in which he plays Achilles, a hero from Ancient Greek
mythology).

Over the years, there has been a lot of media interest in Pitt’s personal life, particularly his
relationships with glamorous actresses. In 2000, he married Jennifer Aniston, star of the hit US
sitcom Friends, but they split up in 2005; and soon after, he started dating Angelina Jolie, whom
he had met when acting alongside her in the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

“Brangelina,” as the couple were often referred to, now have six children, after the birth of their
twins in 2008.. Three of their children are adopted, and their first biological baby was born in
2006 in the southern African country of Namibia. Pitt and Jolie had gone there in search of
privacy, but took advantage of the enormous media interest by selling the first photos of their new
baby to a celebrity magazine for around $5 million, which they donated to charity.

Indeed, Pitt is known for his generosity in supporting various good causes, including
environmental campaigns and efforts to combat the spread of AIDS in Africa. He also gave
millions of dollars to help reconstruct New Orleans, where he and Jolie spend a lot of their time,
after the city was hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

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Brad Pitt WORKSHEET B

Exercise 1
Find the words in the text that mean the same as these words and phrases.

1. attractive (in an exciting or special way)

2. huge
3. not very important
4. not normal; unusual
5. rebuild
6. give (in order to help a person or organization)
7. fight, attempt to stop something
8. finish a relationship, break up

Exercise 2
Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F), or if the text doesn’t determine
(D).

1. Brad Pitt didn’t finish his college journalism degree.

2. The movie Fight Club was made after the movie Seven.
3. Pitt acted in the US sitcom Friends.
4. He always plays calm, friendly characters in his movies.
5. He was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit the city.
6. Angelina Jolie has never acted in any of the same movies as Pitt.
7. When Pitt and Jolie went to Namibia in 2006, they hoped they would get less media attention
there.
8. One of Pitt and Jolie’s adopted children is from Namibia.

Exercise 3
Based on the language in the text, decide whether the following sentences are correct or incorrect.

1. He has played lots of different characters in Hollywood movies.

2. She only had a minor role on that movie.
3. “I went to college for two months, then dropped out.”
4. She’s pregnant for her third child right now.
5. He supports lots of different campaigns and gives a lot of money to charity.
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Brad Pitt WORKSHEET C

Exercise 4

Team A
Using the information in the text on Worksheet A, make questions using the words in the boxes.
Use only one box for each question, and don’t repeat any questions. When you have prepared the
questions, Team B will have to answer them as part of a quiz.

How many Why campaigns Achilles

referred to Where … born What … study reconstruct

Katrina When Seven from an early age

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Team B
Using the information in the text on Worksheet A, make questions using the words in the boxes.
Use only one box for each question, and don’t repeat any questions. When you have prepared the
questions, Team A will have to answer them as part of a quiz.

How much lists Who … marry a lot of their time

How … meet When … born Why sitcom

When patient Ocean’s Eleven Where … high

school

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e-lesson Week starting: August 3, 2009

1. Brad Pitt
This week’s lesson is about the actor, and regular candidate for the title of “world’s most
handsome man,”, Brad Pitt.

Level
Intermediate and above (equivalent to CEF level B1 and above).

How to use the lesson

1. Brainstorm on the subject of Brad Pitt. Why is he so famous? Which of his movies
have the students seen, and what can they tell you about the parts he played in them?
What do they know about his personal/family life? Do they think celebrities like Pitt have
too little privacy?

2. Give your students between five and ten minutes to read through Worksheet A,
encouraging them to look up new vocabulary. Note that a few of the words that might be
new are not in the glossary because they form part of Exercise 1.

3. Give each student a copy of Worksheet B, then divide the class into pairs and ask
students to work together. In Exercise 1 they have to find synonyms, in Exercise 2 they
must answer the true/false/doesn’t determine questions, and in Exercise 3 they must
decide whether the sentences have been written in correct English.

4. Check answers in open class.

5. Next, divide the students into two teams, A and B, and give each team the
corresponding part of Worksheet C. The students have to refer back to Worksheet A and
formulate questions based on the information using the words in the twelve boxes. They
will then ask the other team these questions as part of a quiz.
The teams must use the exact words in the boxes, and avoid asking the same
question more than once. The words in most of the boxes can be used to create more than
one question, and words such as “When” and “Why” obviously offer various
possibilities. If one team asks a question that the other team was going to ask, the other
team has to think quickly to formulate an alternative question. Impose a time limit in
which the teams have to formulate their questions. If a team is unable to create twelve
questions, the other team should receive a point for each “missing” question – e.g. if
Team A can only create ten questions, Team B gets two points.

6. When the quiz begins, make it clear that the teams can no longer refer back to
Worksheet A. The two teams take turns asking and answering questions. Award one point
for each grammatically correct question, and one point for each correct answer. Award
zero points for questions containing mistakes, repeated questions, or incorrect answers.
When both teams have asked all their questions, the team with the most points wins.
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Answers: Deleted: ¶
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Exercise 1 (synonyms)
1. glamorous 2. enormous 3. minor 4. unconventional 5. reconstruct
6. donate 7. combat 8. split up

Exercise 2 (true/false/doesn’t say)

1. T 2. T 3. D 4. F 5. D 6. F 7. T 8. D
Exercise 3 (correct/incorrect)
1. Correct
2. Incorrect. She only had a minor role on in that movie.
3. Correct
4. Incorrect. She’s pregnant for with her third child right now.
5. Correct

2. Related Websites
Send your students to these websites, or just take a look yourself.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197389,00.html
A FOX News article (2006) on the financial donation Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie made
to hospitals in Namibia, the African country where their child was born. Appropriate for
intermediate level.

http://www.people.com/people/brad_pitt
Some of the latest news articles on Brad Pitt, from the website of the celebrity magazine
People. Intermediate level and above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_pitt
The entry on Brad Pitt in Wikipedia. Intermediate level and above.

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