Michael Pitt: Indie Nirvana
By JULIA CHAPLIN - July 17, 2005

BEING around the actor Michael Pitt is like living inside a seamy teenage flick by Larry Clark or Gus Van Sant, two directors this indie film heartthrob has worked with. At 7 on a recent evening Mr. Pitt, with his prominent lips, angelic blue eyes and thick greasy hair requisite for playing sexually ambiguous, dysfunctional young men, was chain-smoking cigarettes outside Pianos, a club in the Lower East Side. His rock band, Pagoda - he is the shy, mysterious lead singer - had just finished a sound check. The group had four hours to kill before the show.

"Let's go to Greenpoint and drink some beers," Mr. Pitt said to his entourage, which had snowballed into about a dozen young men, mostly musicians and band mates, and an older woman wearing a revealing fur-lined vest that was very "Banger Sisters."

They piled into a few beat-up old cars and headed for Connie O's Pub in Brooklyn. Mr. Pitt was wearing a T-shirt and pants with so many holes that there was no mistaking them for the predistressed ones sold at Diesel or Urban Outfitters. When they arrived, Mr. Pitt bee-lined it to the nearest deli, for cigarettes. "Someone needs to buy them for me," the 24-year-old said. "I don't have a license, and I always get carded."

Inside, an elderly Polish clerk regarded the pale, waifish actor. "You got an ID?" he asked.

Mr. Pitt dropped out of high school in New Jersey when he was 16 and ran away to New York City, crashing on friends' couches and working as a bike messenger until he got his big break: a role on the TV show "Dawson's Creek." Since then Mr. Pitt has worked with a Who's Who of hip directors, including Barbet Schroeder ("Murder by Numbers").

In Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The Dreamers," Mr. Pitt engaged in a full-frontal sexual encounter with French twins, one male, one female, that's still lighting up Internet message boards. "Doing the nude scenes was scary because it can damage a career," he said. "But I wanted to do it because I think America is uptight and silly. It's good to push boundaries."

In his new film, Mr. Van Sant's "Last Days," Mr. Pitt plays a heroin-shooting rock star (who manages to look amazing in greasy hair, eyeliner and a slip dress) inspired by Kurt Cobain in his final hours.

After a Corona beer and several more cigarettes, Mr. Pitt joined his friends at an apartment nearby, where a low-budget picnic was under way with 40-ounce bottles of Country Club malt liquor, hand-rolled cigarettes and large tuna sandwiches from the corner store. Pagoda's bassist, who was homeless and living in a squat in Portland, Ore., when he met Mr. Pitt, offered the actor a bite. Mr. Pitt took just one. "I like the feeling of hunger before performing," he said.

On the way out Mr. Pitt grabbed hold of a chin-up bar in the door frame and attempted to pull. "This is how I get pumped up before the show," he said, jokingly.

Back at Pianos, Mr. Pitt saw his girlfriend, Jamie Bochert, sitting cross-legged on the ground. He ran over and hugged her. His aunt, a tough-looking biker with spiked heels and long bleached-blond hair, stood nearby showing off a pin attached to her shirt with photos of her grandchildren. "When Michael comes to visit, I drive him around on the back of my Harley and show him off," she said in a raspy drawl.

At 11, Pagoda took the stage. Women lining the front of the room sang along and photographed Mr. Pitt with their cellphones. "When I first met Michael, he didn't even tell me he was an actor," Ms. Bochert said. "One day he brought me to this studio, and I looked up and saw this cute guy on the screen, and I was like, 'It's you!' "

She beamed. "That's just how Michael is."