My three minutes with Brad Pitt in Cannes

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When I was 14, I'd painstakingly glued Brad Pitt's picture all over my school ringbinder. Now here I was sticking out my hand towards his, introducing myself as a journalist who was writing about Cannes.

Brad didn't look unduly alarmed — and broke the ice with something about that being a great job. "Cannes, don't you just love it?" he said. Never more than now, I thought …

In the flesh: Olivia Cole collars a 'tanned and crumpled' Brad Pitt while Angelina Jolie mopes in the foreground

He was tanned and slightly crumpled (there's nothing worse than a too-neat man), and looked incredibly healthy.

He tucked into a mini-burger while we talked and was clinking ice in what could have been vodka and orange.

Angelina, who was talking to friends nearby and may not have been thrilled about me bouncing up to her husband, looked petite but nowhere near as skinny or delicate as pictures suggest.

When in Cannes: Olivia on the Croisette

We had a surreal three-minute conversation about how they have a house "about an hour away", agreeing on how beautiful it is here in the South of France.

He urged me to see his new film, Inglourious Basterds — "You've got to see it. It's a good one. It's outrageous."

Given the rigamarole of getting to this moment, I asked him if it ever got too crazy. He grinned and, despite the mayhem, said: "This is good crazy" — a gung-ho attitude considering his and Angelina's ability to bring Cannes to a standstill.

Starry-eyed: with model Victoria Silvstedt

My task had been to get alongside the world's most glamorous couple at the private party being thrown for them on Wednesday by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein at Baoli Beach, one of the top clubs that litter the shore.

I had the good fortune to be on the guest list and in the frightening riot that was the queue to get in, I was duly ticked off the list (twice), but in the crush I couldn't make it through the barrier.

Cannes do: with the Dsquared twins

Behind me friends of Harvey's screeched for his PA in inimitable LA style: "Emily! EMILY!" From behind a ring of steel, Emily looked on, teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Brad and Angelina's personal security team are rumoured to be ex-secret service. There were even "agents" on the roof and at the end of the jetty.

Hot and crushed, I finally trotted down the steps to the candlelit marquees and, amazingly, there in the corner (next to a DJ from Les Caves in St Tropez), rather than hidden in a VIP area, was Brad, holding court with what looked like glamorous Italian socialites.

Despite the recent marriage rumours, he and Angelina were holding hands, laughing and chatting away, flanked by two bodyguards who looked like extras from Snatch.

For those who insist there are no stars in Cannes, my brief chat with Brad Pitt, which ended with a courteous "Nice to meet you", was a truly celestial moment.

It was the highlight of an increasingly bizarre week in which I'd managed to get into every party that counted while my boyfriend got on with the legitimate daytime business of promoting a film project based on his novel, Chameleon.

In the previous days I'd talked to Quentin Tarantino at the Hotel du Cap, had Paris Hilton kiss me and compliment me on the smell of my shampoo, and run into David Furnish on a nightly basis.

If ever there were an event where a reporter could be corrupted, Marcello Mastroianni-style, the Cannes film festival is it.

I found myself having that most Cannes of moments — being "dressed" by a designer, in this case Dean and Dan, the high-octane identical twins of Dsquared — the New York label most famous for revamping Gwyneth Paltrow with their six-inch heels.

Thanks to them, at their party on Tuesday night I slinked around in my LBD with a huge ostrich feather on one shoulder and even managed not to tumble down the stone stairs of the their villa and into the floodlit pool.

Earlier in the week, at the Quintessentially beach party for Sam Taylor-Wood, I was just about to talk to Colin Firth when Barnaby Thompson, who runs Ealing Studios, leaned over and said, half joking: "Colin, I have to warn you that this is an evil journalist …"

"Yes, and I trust them so much more than you!" Firth retorted.

I asked him if he thought Cannes was still glamorous: "I don't know what the word means," he said. "The word's a media invention."

After my encounter with Brad I'd disagree — "glamorous" isn't a media invention, it's a Hollywood one.

Thanks to Brad and a week of going to bed when I usually get up, I think I now know what it means.

 

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