By: Zhihan Jiang

With performances that range over several different genres and a clever public relations strategy, Brad Pitt has made a career that most other actors can only dream of.

Bullet Train, his newest action-comedy movie, tells a lot about that career. In Bullet Train, Pitt plays a goofy character with a goofy code name, Ladybug, a hitman in an unflattering bucket hat. While Ladybug tries to become a calmer guy who doesn’t want to fight, he fights off assassins on high-speed Japanese bullet trains as he tries to steal a briefcase. Just by watching the movie, you can almost make out that Pitt is a good dramatic actor, and even better at comedy.

Pitt has a long history of movies that helped him become the actor he is now. In 12 Monkeys (1995), he plays a patient in a psychiatric hospital, defying his pretty boy looks. Then, in Fight Club (1999), he pummels his alter ego. Combined with several other movies, he totals three decades acting in movies.

Inglorious Basterds was a turning point for him. The movie is where his ironic smile became famous, and the accent combined with the army-issued haircut helped him to not thought as “pretty-Brad” anymore.

Unlike other actors, he has taken a different path from other major movie stars of his generation. George Clooney, although still acting, has been producing more and more socially conscious films. Tom Cruise will not stop making action films, with this year’s Top Gun: Maverick and an endless string of Mission Impossible movies. Pitt, however, has chosen several roles that are unalike.

Pitt has appeared in World War Two dramas, contemporary satires, and some sly cameos. With no stable on-screen persona, he can avoid becoming typecast or stale.