The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp: ‘A razor-sharp retelling of Vanity Fair’ Louise O’Neill

Later he would spend two hours in make-up before emoting in front of a green screen so CGI effects could be added in later. And later still, he was due to have dinner and drinks with a producer who he hated and the producer’s wife, who he’d slept with and who now also hated him.

It was all bullshit, Pitt thought. He thought it again. Then he said the words out loud: ‘It’s all bullshit!’ He scrambled out of bed, naked as the day he was born, flung open the windows so he could stand out on the balcony that overlooked the Olympic-sized swimming pool and shout, ‘IT’S ALL BULLSHIT!’ to the heavens and the bemusement of his gardening crew. And it was at that moment that he had an epiphany, and a few hours after that he was at LAX waiting to fly back to England to find his true, authentic self.

WHAT A PITT-Y!

Legendary luvvie Sir Pitt Crawley retires from acting to become a blacksmith

The papers had been full of incredulous headlines, passing it off as pretentious nonsense, but Pitt had retired to the crumbling estate that had been in his family for generations (the original Pitt Crawley made his fortune in the brewing of beer for none other than Queen Elizabeth I) to strip away the trappings of fame and adulation and get back to nature.

And yes, he had the old forge on his land restored and got the only blacksmith in the county to give him lessons. It transpired that blacksmithing was very strenuous work and Pitt was knocking on for sixty-five (but a very distinguished sixty-five), so when the only horse he ever shod promptly went lame, he gave up his Lawrentian dreams of hewing metal, if not his dreams of a more authentic life.