Brad Pitt puts a stop to Hollywood career

Forget about the movies, Brad Pitt is all about resurrecting New Orleans.

The actor says he's put his Hollywood career on hold, with no film projects underway, while doing all he can to help the city recover from Hurricane Katrina.

"This is my project," he said earlier this month, sitting at a table on a tiled slab where Katrina's flood pushed a house off its foundation in the Lower 9th Ward more than two years ago. He said he and Angelina Jolie and their children planned to spend the holidays in New Orleans.

The slow recovery from Katrina's destruction in August 2005 has attracted many celebrities, among them Sean Penn, Denis Leary, Kirstie Alley, Ellen Degeneres and New Orleans native musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis.

Few stand out as much as Pitt, who has made a personal and financial commitment to rebuilding shattered neighborhoods.

He and Jolie bought a home in the French Quarter. He has pledged more than $5 million to rebuild one of the city's most devastated neighborhoods and has spent countless hours listening to residents' needs.

"I believe in what's going on down here," he said after the launch earlier this month of Make It Right, the Pitt-backed project to rebuild 150 homes in the Lower 9th Ward.