Actor Brad Pitt says he and partner Angelina Jolie like to bike around New Orleans, and he enjoys seeing the energy-efficient homes his Make It Right Foundation built for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

“In New Orleans, the people are great. They leave Angie and me alone,” Pitt says in an interview on the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s website. Despite the paparazzi that often trail them, he says: “Everybody treats us like neighbors.”

“The Lower 9th is now the greenest — I don’t even like the word green — it’s the most high-performing clean neighborhood in the world, according to the Green Building council,” he says.

Pitt, who has a home in the French Quarter and is now there for Katrina’s fifth anniversary events, says he was drawn to the city because he found it “sexy and sultry.” He was interviewed by historian Douglas Brinkley, a longtime friend.

In 2006, Pitt’s non-profit foundation commissioned 13 architecture firms to design affordable, eco-friendly houses and has since built 30 in the Lower Ninth Ward, according to Brinkley. Here are excerpts of his interview with Pitt, as provided to the Times-Picayune

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What we heard: In November 2009 Brad Pitt’s production companies Reliance Big Entertainment and Plan B Entertainment bought the rights to the forthcoming Dark Void film, but that may not be the only movie project tied to the storied actor.

Sources told the Hollywood news outlet Showbizspy that Brad Pitt is the “hot favorite” to star in an upcoming film based on the events of Rockstar Games’ critically lauded and comercially successful Western, Red Dead Redemption. The sources say the Fight Club and Meet Joe Black star will play the game’s troubled protagonist, John Marston.

“This is an exciting project with a great character at the center of it,” a source told the website. “The idea is to make this in the style of an epic Western movie but with a few modern touches. Brad is perfect for the role and he is being given first refusal.”

Unfortunately, the report did not include the names of possible supporting cast members, a projected release date for the film, or any other details on the project.

The official story: A Rockstar Games representative told GameSpot “We do not comment on rumor or speculation.”

Bogus or not bogus?: Today’s rumor is the first mention of a Red Dead Redemption film. While fans may be excited about the prospect of a film based on the game, if the project is real, it’s likely only in the very early planning stages.

Further, Pitt is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, and he is likely offered “first refusal”–the ability to be the first actor to say no to a project–frequently. If the project is indeed real, Pitt may pass on the project, leaving the Marston role open to another actor.

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Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie will make her debut as a film director in the GK Films production of a feature film set during the Bosnian war.

British film company GK Films said that Jolie will not be onscreen in this love story.

Angelina Jolie was in Bosnia recently with two of her six children, the two-year-old twins, Vivienne and Knox. She met with political leaders there about the plight of war refugees from the Bosnian War which occurred between 1992 and 1995. She was also seen scouting locations in Budapest over the weekend so that her family can be together while she is working.

Jolie is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In a released statement she said, “I would like to involve as many local people as possible and learn as much as I can.”

Casting will be exclusively “various ethnicities of the former Yugoslavia.” Since Brad’s not from the former Yugoslavia, the presumption is that he won’t be in it.

So far no start date for this movie has been disclosed. Will Angelina Jolie cast Brad Pitt in her new movie?

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As I strolled along Tennessee Street in New Orleans at dusk earlier this month, I saw neighbors chatting on shady porches and a few friends drinking at a picnic table under a house set high on stilts.

Five years ago, after Hurricane Katrina struck, a wall of water burst through the Industrial Canal levee just west of Tennessee Street in the city’s Lower Ninth Ward, and blasted 4,000 homes into kindling. A barge tumbled through the breach and lay at a crazy tilt just yards away from where I walked.

Now, almost 50 colorful houses with bat-wing roofs and louver-trellised porches have been built or are in construction. They are the most cheering emblem of a city where hundreds of thousands have returned yet full recovery and drivers of future growth remain elusive.

Tennessee Street’s rebirth was made possible by Make It Right, the charity that actor Brad Pitt, appalled by how little had happened two years after the Lower Ninth’s inundation, founded in 2007. It has raised $31 million so far — including $5 million of Pitt’s own money — to build 150 houses in the Lower Ninth, which became the symbolic epicenter of the human failure that made Hurricane Katrina so senselessly devastating.

I met Steven Bingler on Tennessee Street the next morning. One of 21 architects brought in by Make It Right, he pointed to a boxy, one-story house with a cockeyed hip roof that he had designed.

Traditional in Spirit

In spirit, it’s a traditional New Orleans house, long and narrow, though the roof tips to orient solar panels to the best sun angle. Bingler supplied a deep front porch because people in this neighborhood need to talk to neighbors and wave at passersby. Indeed several people tracking the passing scene from their porches that morning looked a lot more comfortable than we were in the searing heat.

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I just wanted to give a little update on the status of the site. I’m working hard on organizing some things and the site should be fully open soon! As you can see, we have new layouts for the main site and the gallery. I’m absolutely loving both of them and I hope all of you are too! I also added 270+ photos of Brad at the Los Angeles Premiere of Angelina Jolie’s movie Salt. Enjoy the photos and keep checking back for all the new updates!

Gallery Link
Public Appearances > Events from 2010 > “Salt” Los Angeles Premiere