Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt

UPDATED 05/06/1996 at 01:00 AM EDT • Originally published 05/06/1996 at 01:00 AM EDT

LAST SUMMER, WHILE BRAD PITT was doing a scene on the set of the forthcoming film Sleepers, Dustin Hoffman decided to take a peek through the camera's viewfinder to see what all the fuss was about. "Can you believe anybody's that good-looking?" he muttered in smiling appreciation. "Next to that kid, we all look like onions." Or maybe chopped liver. Leave it to old-guard Hollywood to mull, facelifts and eye tucks. At 32, Brad Pitt is swimming youthfully against the tide. He broke hearts by chopping off his flowing hair for Seven. In Twelve Monkeys, he covered his baby blues with brown contacts to play a spittle-covered psycho. So, considering what the good Lord gave him when faces were being handed out, why does Pitt insist on trying to hide his light under a barrel? "He's Brad," says Seven costar Morgan Freeman. "He's not anybody else." Somehow, the six-footer with the killer smile is going to have to find a way to live with his appeal. Melissa Etheridge, who ought to know, said he could make a gay woman change her mind. And Seven producer Arnold Kopelson vividly recalls his first meeting with Pitt: "My heart skipped a beat, he was so gorgeous. And I'm a heterosexual." Sorry, folks. Pitt's heart belongs to ethereal actress Gwyneth Paltrow, 23, whom Brad calls "my angel." It's sure going to be hell for the rest of us.