Seventeen years after his last appearance at the San Sebastián Film Festival, Brad Pitt walked back into the same spotlight this week. At 62, he still had the room watching when he stepped up to the press podium for Heart of the Beast. Then, in a very Pitt moment, he briefly turned away to get rid of his chewing gum before turning back with a grin.

The film he was there to promote isn’t exactly a quiet late-career detour, either. Pitt plays Special Forces officer James Belmont, who survives a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness with his combat dog, Odin. The role again puts him in the middle of a physically demanding survival story, even as Pitt has been open about feeling the years in his body.

That question of how Pitt has managed to keep going came up again during his appearance on Devin “Kakashi” Williams’ Winning Formula podcast. Williams reached for a basketball comparison, likening Pitt’s staying power in Hollywood to LeBron James’ remarkable run in the NBA. Pitt responded to the comparison, but first joked about how his body feels as he gets older.

“Well, I polish up well, but I got creaky knees and everything like just getting here to get to this chair,” Pitt said on the Winning Formula Podcast. “But no, I believe in staying physical. I think it’s really important. I remember in off times I feel worse when I am staying physical, and I can build that up. I think it builds strength around your joints and everything else, and you can be more capable. So I’m looking to play tennis till I’m 80 or something.”

Ballislife shared a clip from the conversation. An Instagram post about Pitt’s podcast appearance also received several fan reactions. Here are some of them:

Fans disagree with the LeBron James comparison

One fan quickly disagreed with the Pitt-LeBron comparison. The fan believed another famous actor deserved that comparison.

“Nah it’s Denzel,” a fan wrote. 

The fan was talking about Denzel Washington. Washington has also stayed successful in Hollywood for decades, so the fan believed he was a better choice for the LeBron comparison. Another fan had a different idea.

“Denzel must be Jordan,” they wrote. 

This fan compared Washington to Michael Jordan instead of LeBron James. That changed the nature of the discussion. What Williams had presented as a comparison about longevity was suddenly being treated as an argument about acting’s equivalent of the NBA’s GOAT debate.

But Denzel was not the only actor fans mentioned. Another fan believed Tom Cruise was a better choice.

“Nah Tom Cruise is,” one of the fans’ comments reads.

Cruise also has a very long Hollywood career. His own run makes the comparison especially understandable: he became a leading man in the 1980s and has continued to headline major theatrical releases decades later. One fan took the discussion in a completely different direction.

“I know @LeBron of Fashion. Yes @Sandbiofashion. How are you @Bradpittofficiallll?,” a fan wrote.

Instead of choosing between Pitt, Washington, or Cruise, this fan joked about the LeBron comparison and brought fashion into the conversation. Another fan gave one of the most interesting basketball comparisons.

“Leo DiCaprio is definitely LeBron. The modern day GOAT. Brad Pitt is closer to KD,” one fan said.

The different reactions showed how people understood Williams’ original comparison in different ways. The distinction matters. LeBron can represent more than greatness in this context; he is also a shorthand for a career that has stretched across generations without fading from the center of the sport. But some fans saw the LeBron comparison as a bigger statement about who is the greatest actor.

There is a reason that interpretation can be tempting, even if it goes further than Williams’ original point. LeBron has now played 23 NBA seasons, owns the league’s records for All-Star selections and All-NBA selections, and remains a major player at 41. He is the first player to reach 23 seasons and has averaged at least 20 points in every one of them.

Pitt’s career does not have an equivalent statistical measure, but his longevity is difficult to miss. He first became a major star in the early 1990s and has moved through several versions of Hollywood without disappearing from the center of it.

Pitt first received major attention for Thelma & Louise in 1991. He later appeared in many famous movies, including Se7en, 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, Ocean’s Eleven, Troy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Inglourious Basterds, Moneyball, World War Z, Fury and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. More recently, he starred in Bullet Train and F1.

The interesting part is not simply the number of years. Pitt’s career has changed shape along the way. The heartthrob from Thelma & Louise became the actor taking on Fight Club and 12 Monkeys, then the leading man of the Ocean’s films and World War Z, before moving into more character-driven roles such as Moneyball and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He has remained recognizable without having to keep playing the same version of himself.

That staying power has also been noticed by actors much younger than Pitt. Damson Idris, who starred alongside him in F1, said in March that working with Pitt taught him to think about acting as a “long game.” Idris added, “Don’t chase moments, chase legacy,” describing the lesson he took from his co-star.

Pitt’s most recent major success gives that idea some weight. F1: The Movie, released in 2025, became the highest-grossing film of Pitt’s career, crossing $630 million worldwide according to Formula 1. Reuters also reported that the movie opened with $55.6 million domestically and more than $88 million worldwide in its first weekend.

And Pitt was not using the film as a victory lap for an earlier era. He was the lead, playing a former Formula 1 driver brought back to mentor a younger racer. The film’s success meant that a 61-year-old Pitt was once again at the center of a major theatrical release rather than simply appearing as a familiar name in the cast.

That makes his return to San Sebastián more than just another festival appearance. His last visit came in 2009, when he presented Inglourious Basterds with Quentin Tarantino. Seventeen years later, he returned with Heart of the Beast, another film built around him.

The reception was still there, too. Spanish newspaper El País reported that hundreds of fans waited for Pitt from early morning when he arrived in San Sebastián, and that he spent more than 20 minutes signing autographs and taking photographs.

Pitt has also won major awards during his career. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He was also one of the producers of 12 Years a Slave, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

That combination is where the LeBron comparison has its clearest basis: not in a claim that Pitt is the acting equivalent of LeBron’s statistical dominance, but in the unusual ability to remain a major name while an entire generation of younger stars comes and goes. LeBron has done it on the basketball court; Pitt has done it across changing eras of Hollywood.

Now Pitt’s latest movie, Heart of the Beast, arrives in theaters on September 25, 2026. Directed by David Ayer, the film puts Pitt back in a physically demanding leading role as James Belmont, a retired Army Special Forces officer stranded in Alaska with his former military dog after a plane crash. Pitt is also among the film’s producers.

Williams’ comparison, then, has a narrower meaning than the fan debate that followed it. He was pointing to Pitt’s ability to keep going. The comments turned that into a question of who deserves the LeBron, Jordan or even Kevin Durant label in Hollywood.

So, if Brad Pitt is not the LeBron James of acting, which Hollywood star deserves that comparison? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.