Arts/Film

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Good Friends

Postcards from the Pug Bus

Philadelphia/PA/USA/05/27/05

... SAFFRON WALDEN, UK - Persons who attended the Saffron Walden Friends Meeting last week know something the rest of the world does not: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt would make "good Friends."

After Jolie and Pitt had visited the Sunday meeting, regular attendees said they were impressed by the pair's devotion to the ideals that inform the Society of Friends.

"They certainly look like they'd make good Friends to me," said Graham Newbury, a lecturer in history at Cambridge. "They're sober, thoughtful people who are serious about making the world a better place in which to live."

Members of the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, believe all people can have direct experience of God. They make no distinction between the sacred and the secular. In meetings for worship such as the one Jolie and Pitt attended, Quakers meet with God in an un-programmed quiet time and in the vocal contributions of others, who are free to speak as the spirit moves them.

Jolie, 26, was the first to feel that spirit.

"It's nice to be among Friends," she said quietly, as people near the front of the meeting craned their necks to get a better look at her. "I am moved to say this morning that Brad Pitt and I are not intimately involved. I think the world of Brad, and we get along great, but as far as anything past friendship is concerned, absolutely not."

When she had finished speaking, Jolie, who wore a black dress from Donatella Versace's Sunday Go to Meeting collection, sat down reverently. After a brief period of thoughtful silence, Pitt, 41, rose to speak.

"I, too, am happy to be among Friends," he began. "I am moved to say this morning that redressing the tabloid world's sins against my relationship with Ms. Jolie is my greatest priority. I will not rest until that work is done."

According to Emma Winthrop-Jones, a member of the Saffron Walden Meeting, "One needn't be a member to attend a meeting for worship or to speak during worship. There are a number of people who have been active in our meeting for years who are not members. That being said, I think Angelina and Brad would make good Friends, and I would encourage them, when and if the spirit moves them, to apply to our monthly meeting to join the society."

No one at either Jolie's or Pitt's offices was available for comment, but Ashton Kutcher, a friend of the couple, told US Weekly that Pitt became interested in "the Quaker thing" when his estranged wife, Jennifer Aniston, starred in the television series "Friends," which Pitt mistakenly thought was about a group of Friends trying to live their beliefs in a materialistic world.