When developing his characters, Brad Pitt dives pretty deeply.
The 51-year-old Oscar winner just debuted his latest project, By the Sea, the first film starring both Pitt and his wife Angelina Jolie since sparks flew between them on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith back in 2005.
In their newest silver screen venture, for which Jolie both wrote and directed, the real life married couple of almost two years depicts the a dysfunctional married couple embarking on a series of troubled travels in 1970s France.
While their characters are arguably some of the most emotionally strenuous they've played in their lengthy careers, Pitt told E! News more than a decade ago that when it comes to playing a character, it's all about the personal touch.
"If the thing's good, you have to make it personal. You have to personalize it in some degree, whether it's not so blatantly placed on the surface or on the sleeve, but yes, you have to personalize it," a 40-year-old buzzed Pitt told E! News back in 2004 while working on Troy. "Each thing in one way takes you away from yourself and takes you in a direction you haven't been and yet your investigation is bringing it back to yourself."
For Pitt, those investigations can lead to some serious personal therapy.
"We get to work out a lot of demons on these things," he said, "I don't mean that to be so on some self help bane or something like that….but we do get to investigate a lot of issues."
Fortunately, Pitt and Jolie have assured the public their marriage is in such a good place, they don't need to be concerned about art reflecting life this time around.
"I'm counting on the audience to know that if it was close to us at all, we could never make this film," Jolie told Tom Brokaw in an interview for Today. "It's because we're actually very, very stable and these aren't our issues."
While their issues are not mimicked on screen, it's safe to assume Pitt engaged in his fair share of self reflection all the same.
"I start asking a lot of questions about my own life and it's not necessarily fun, but it's a good exercise," he said all those years ago.
(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)