CANNES -- First he conquered ancient Troy, now Brad Pitt has conquered modern Cannes.

The close-cropped, buff, 40-year-old U.S. superstar quietly took over the 57th Cannes Film Festival yesterday just by showing up.

Pitt injected some of the old-fashioned Hollywood star power that the world's most prestigious filmfest seems to crave as much as it admires serious auteurs and political firebrands.

Pitt, accompanied by his TV-superstar wife Jennifer Aniston and a phalanx of Troy co-stars from Orlando Bloom to Sean Bean, Brian Cox, Saffron Burrows and Diane Kruger, was here because Troy played in the festival out-of-competition.

That meant an obligatory press conference, without Aniston of course, and Pitt was clearly the focus, even though he sat with director Wolfgang Petersen and 10 of the other actors for the afternoon session.

While Troy is not competing for prizes, Pitt deserved an award for politely, even graciously, fielding some of the dumbest questions ever heard asked at Cannes.

One was even about his wife -- but not what you'd think. A fumbling Greek reporter demanded Pitt's views on Greek women, given that Aniston's heritage includes Greek lineage. Even though Pitt plays the Greek warrior Achilles in Troy, the question had nothing to do with the film and little to do with common sense. But Pitt playfully took it on:

"Do you want me to say that Greek women are better than all other women?" Pitt asked rhetorically. "Very dangerous, very dangerous! Not at home -- but bad out here.

"I will tell you this: My wife liked the costume (the short skirt and tight tunic he wore in Troy). My Greek woman asked me to bring it home. I'm not sure why ... " He smiled, implying just a little kinkiness.

Pitt was asked by another European if he had seen last week's final episode of Aniston's hit TV Friends: "Yes, I have," he mumbled almost inaudibly, "and it was good." Wow, that was insightful.

At another point in the press conference, a critic asked Pitt why Achilles was not shown in a gay relationship with his best male friend, a common notion in interpreting Homer's The Iliad, which is the basis for the new film.

"I didn't find anything in it that pointed in that direction," Pitt said, weaseling on the question while agreeing with screenwriter David Benioff that the issue of homosexuality was not specifically brought up in Homer's book, The Iliad.

"It is true that, at that time, homosexuality was absolutely accepted and that these two shared a very close brotherhood."

But the film did not have the time to delve into the issue with its two-hour, 40-minute running time, Pitt said.

His most intriguing moment came when Pitt responded to a perceptive question about the parallel between the obsession with fame in the time of Troy, 2,800 years ago, and Pitt's own concern about fame in Hollywood.

"It's like the early rock stars," Pitt said of the fame generated by warriors in the Mycenaean age.

"You can make those parallels." Pitt then spun a story about how, when he told young friends about his excitement over former Hollywood star Julie Christie taking a supporting role in Troy, he said, "She's the bomb!" but they asked: "Who is Julie Christie?"

Pitt flashed a million megawatt grin: "I think the point is that, you know, it's all going down. It all fades."

BRAD, JEN JUST MISS ANGELINA

Oops, timing is everything where rumoured affairs and the business of movie fame is concerned.

Brad Pitt was here at Cannes just a day before Angelina Jolie -- with whom he is alleged by gossip columnists to have dallied sexually during the making of their new film Mr. And Mrs Smith.

Jolie is scheduled to pop up today with Will Smith and Jack Black to promote DreamWorks' sneak peek of footage from the animated film Shark Attack.

An insider claimed it is no coincidence that Jennifer Aniston is on the Cannes outing with Pitt and that they jetted off to Japan in the middle of last night's Troy screening to launch a Troy tour in Asia.

"There was no way Jennifer was going to allow Brad to spend the night in Cannes alone, just when Angelina was set to arrive," the source said.


More Artists