Dude, Parade Magazine gave Brad Pitt some kind of truth serum. This is the most I’ve ever seen or heard from Brad on a range of subjects. This issue of Parade will be out this weekend, and they not only have a really good interview with Brad, they have some nice photos of him too. Some of the greatest hits from the interview include: Brad calling Angelina his soul mate, complaining about the hate mail from “religious groups” after he spoke out about gay marriage, smoking “grass” (Brad’s cultural references are so 1970s), his struggles to learn French, and sex in his grotto. Good stuff:

Wanting what’s best for his children: “Would it bother me if a child of mine turns out to be gay? No, not one bit. Listen, I want my kids to live the lives they want to live. I want them to be fulfilled. I hope I teach my kids to be who they really are.”

Why he won’t marry Angelina Jolie: “I have love in my life, a soul mate–absolutely. When someone asked me why Angie and I don’t get married, I replied, ‘Maybe we’ll get married when it’s legal for everyone else.’ I stand by that, although I took a lot of flak for saying it–hate mail from religious groups. I believe everyone should have the same rights. They say gay marriage ruins families and hurts kids. Well, I’ve had the privilege of seeing my gay friends being parents and watching their kids grow up in a loving environment.”

The right to love: “Man, I resent people telling others how to live! It drives me mental! Just the other night, I heard this TV reverend say that Angie and I were setting a bad example because we were living out of wedlock, and people should not be duped by us! It made me laugh. What damn right does anyone have to tell someone else how to live if they’re not hurting anyone? How many times do you think real love comes to someone in a lifetime? If you’re lucky, maybe two or three.”

Knowing real love: “Do you know how you tell real love? It’s when someone else’s interest trumps your own. I like to put it that way: trumps your own. Love of somebody else–of family, of your kids–becomes the most important, most worthwhile thing in your life. It’s what you foster and protect. You have to recognize real love when it’s there and know that in going after it there is always risk. To live with love, you have to chance losing it. That’s also true when you decide to have kids. It’s the risk you take for love.”

Lessons learned: “As I’ve gotten older I’ve become aware that time is fleeting. I don’t want to waste whatever I have left. I want to spend it with the people I love, and I want to do things that really mean something.”

Admitting his fears: “Angie’s mom died a couple of years ago of cancer. I haven’t had to face a lot of death. I’m untried in that way, and I don’t know how I will deal with it. My real fear at this point is the safety and health of Angie and the kids. The fear of losing them is what keeps me up at night.”

Owning up to his biggest role: “I don’t know who or what is meant to be in my life, but this is certainly where I want to be. Here with them. I think this is the pinnacle. Even as I’m bound to this thing, in a way I’m freer than I’ve ever been.”

Becoming a family man: “My life has been about big changes. It’s always been that way. When I go down a path, I take it to the end. Then I take another one. I took the path of not having kids–now it’s time for family. Children are a dominant value in my life now, and they weren’t before. They were always something I thought I’d get around to having when the time was right. It wasn’t what I was really seeking. In a way, I think I had to go and exhaust me before I could be good at being a parent. This family is full of life! There are laughs, aggravations, irritations, but at the end of the day, it’s fun. When life is really good, it’s messy.”

His early days in Hollywood: “I liked to smoke a bit of grass at the time, and I became very sheltered. Then I got bored. I was turning into a damn doughnut, really. So I moved as far away from that as I could. I was done. In Missouri, where I come from, we don’t talk about what we do–we just do it. If we talk about it, it’s seen as bragging.”

Building his dream house: “This was my first architectural experience where I tried doing something myself. It is something I wanted to do for decades. This is like play to me. It’s the only thing that can take me away from any problems I may have. After a few years of work, it came out so nice. Now I’ve got so many damn kids, it’s the only place we could all fit in. We’re double-bunking rooms as it is.”

About the secret stone grotto behind the waterfall in his pool…: “[It’s] a great place for sex.”

Raising an international family: “I travel a lot. I don’t feel restless, I just like to travel. I like to see it all. We’re trying to spend more time in the South of France, because our kids have a more normal life there. I don’t believe there is any way around our kids being international. So we have projects in each of their respective countries, and we put a big emphasis on their learning their native languages.”

His foreign fantasy: “I wish there had been an emphasis on learning a foreign language where I grew up. It frustrates the hell out of me. I’ve studied French. I don’t speak it. I’m working on it. It’s real slow going. Oh, how I suffer! Those synapses never formed! They’re dry-docked for good!”

[From Parade]

Granted, some of this stuff Brad has talked about before, but you have to pick little pieces here and there. I don’t think I’ve heard Brad call Angelina his soul mate. If you read it carefully, I suppose, he doesn’t really say that Angelina is his soul mate, only that “I have love in my life, a soul mate–absolutely” while he’s talking generally about Angelina. I assumed it’s her. Am I wrong? Is Brad having hot, wet, grotto sex with some other soul mate?