Pitt is one of the producers of best picture winner 12 Years a Slave and also had a supporting role in the film.
Prior to the best picture award, Matthew McConaughey won the best actor Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club for his performance as a homophobic man battling AIDS who goes outside the medical establishment to find a way to survive.
He mentioned a lot of things during his speech but not once said the word AIDS.
McConaughey ended his speech by saying: ‘Amen’ and ‘Alright, Alright, Alright’ and ‘Keep on Livin.’
His co-star Jared Leto had won best supporting actor earlier in the night for his performance as a transgender woman with AIDS and given a heartfelt and thoughtful speech and paid tribute to those who have died from AIDS or been mistreated for being different.
McConaughey and Leto had been heavily favored to win as had best actress winner Cate Blanchett who won for her performance in Blue Jasmine.
‘As random and subjective as this award is, it means a great deal in a year of, yet again, extraordinary performances by women,’ Blanchett said in her acceptance speech.
She also added that there are people in the movie business ‘who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences. They are not. Audiences want to see them, and in fact, they earn money.’
Newcomer Lupita Nyong’o won best supporting actress for what was her first film role and gave the night’s best speech.
‘It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is because of so much pain in someone else’s,’ Nyong’o said in a tribute to her character, a slave in 1840s Louisiana.
