For director Quentin Tarantino Brad Pitt is one of the last movie stars. After hits like “World War Z” (2013) and “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” (2019) Pitt is seen less and less in front of the camera. In an interview with GQ, the actor opened up about an issue that’s making life difficult for him. He can’t remember faces.
This quickly leads to unpleasant situations, especially at parties. Pitt explained that many people label him “aloof” and “self-absorbed” because of the illness. “No one believes me,” the actor sighed.
When “GQ” journalist Ottessa Moshfegh finally revealed that her husband may also have a facial recognition disorder, Pitt is said to have become emotional. He really wanted to meet someone else going through the same thing. However, he has not been professionally diagnosed with the disease, Pitt said.
“They think I don’t respect them”
Pitt announced his self-diagnosis back in 2013 and spoke about the problems it caused him. “So many people hate me because they think I don’t respect them,” the actor told Esquire. Asking where you met often only makes people angrier.
Two million Germans affected
Face recognition weakness is called “prosopagnosia” in technical jargon – the word comes from the Greek and describes the inability to recognize faces or to assign faces to a specific identity. According to estimates, around two million people in Germany are affected, explained the ZDF in a contribution.
Prosopagnosia is far from being fully explored. Researchers have only been dealing intensively with the disease since 2001. Only around a hundred papers have been written worldwide and only a few studies have been carried out.