Brad Pitt promoting Bullet Train. Photo / AP
Ever wondered if Brad Pitt's easygoing public persona is the real thing?
Australian comedian Jim Jefferies assures everyone it is.
Jefferies has met the Ocean's 11 star several times when Pitt appeared on Jefferies' show, playing a character called The Depressing Weatherman.
"Brad Pitt is everything you would hope him to be. He's the best looking man in the world and super nice. And down to earth. You know what I mean?," Jefferies revealed on news.com.au's I've Got News For You podcast.
A few years ago, Jefferies explained to Conan O'Brien on his show how Pitt came to be a recurring guest star on his programme, The Jim Jefferies Show.
"So, Brad Pitt calls me up," Jefferies told O'Brien. "And he likes my stand-up. He said, 'I want to be on your show' – and the phone call is literally this quick – 'Oh wait, do you want to be my weatherman?' and he went 'yeah, yeah!'.
"Then we pay him $400 an episode. He's very reasonable."
Jefferies revealed that Hollywood A-listers have all been "really decent people", namechecking Russell Crowe as one of the "most genuine, charitable people" he's ever met.
"So far, I haven't met an A-list person that has let me down, but I've met a few B-listers that I thought were arseholes.
"The people are mostly arseholes are the ones that are on the rise and they believe their own hype or something like that."
But he declined to name the offenders, laughing, "I can't do that! As an E-lister myself, I can't be knocking the people above me. I'll never get up to the Ds or the other seat."
On the I've Got News For You podcast, Jefferies also addressed a longstanding rumour linking him to a mooted Australian version of The Office.
"Completely false," he told news.com.au. "And I would be up for that. It was something that somebody put on IMDB."
Jefferies explained that actors, some of whom he'd met previously and others he hadn't, would write to him because they had an audition for the project and wanted inside info because they had read he was to play the lead, a character supposedly called "Nigel Payne".
"I actually reached out to my agents and said, 'Tell them I'm well up to be in Australian The Office, I would love to have that role'. And we did not get a call back. I don't think I was ever considered.
"I think someone put it up there as their fantasy cast. It wasn't a real thing."
Jefferies added that while sometimes he would hear about jobs and thought they would be out of his depth, he's confident he'd nail it on The Office.
"I would have that character down. I watched The Office. I wouldn't do it like David Brent, I wouldn't do it like Michael Scott. I'd have my own take on it. I would love to have done that job.
"Maybe I'm not allowed to say this because production is going on, but I haven't been cast in it nor has anyone spoken to me about it. I hear they're having a female boss."
Unconfirmed media reports earlier this year had Magda Szubanksi rumoured to take on the lead role after approaches had been made to Isla Fisher and Rachel Griffiths.
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