Brad Pitt On Atheism & Hatred: Star Talks God, Genocide And Inequality

Brad Pitt starred as a pious Christian man in the Oscar nominated-epic "The Tree of Life," but off-screen, a childhood spent in church pews have rendered him far from a regular congregant.

"I grew up very religious, and I don't have a great relationship with religion," Pitt tells The Hollywood Reporter in their new cover story. "I oscillate between agnosticism and atheism."

Pitt was open about his religious childhood while promoting the film last summer, telling Extra that he "got brought up being told things were God's way, and when things didn't work out it was called God's plan."

In 2009, the star discussed his unease with God, saying that he was "probably 20 percent atheist and 80 percent 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."

That, of course, doesn't mean Pitt doesn't have a higher purpose. As he tells THR, "I got really sick of myself at the end of the 1990s: I was hiding out from the celebrity thing; I was smoking way too much dope; I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut."

That changed when he took a trip to Morocco in the late-90s, where he saw "poverty to an extreme I had never witnessed before, and we talked about inequality and health care, and I saw just what I felt was so unnecessary."

It made him an activist, something he shares in common with his partner, Angelina Jolie. For more on the Oscar nominee's relationship with Jolie, his activism, his movies and more, click over to The Hollywood Reporter.