Brad Pitt opens up about split from Angelina Jolie: 'We're both doing our best'

— -- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were one of Hollywood's most high-profile couples.

Since Jolie filed for divorce in September after two years of marriage, Pitt has mostly laid low. But the actor recently told GQ he's made changes in his life to deal with the pain.

"I was boozing too much. It's just become a problem. And I'm really happy it's been half a year now, which is bittersweet, but I've got my feelings in my fingertips again," he told the magazine. "I think that's part of the human challenge: You either deny them all of your life or you answer them and evolve."

Facing his flaws and mistakes head-on is something Pitt, 53, stressed as important steps in the healing process.

"Sitting with those horrible feelings, and needing to understand them, and putting them into place," he said. "In the end, you find I am those things I don't like. That is a part of me. I can't deny that. I have to accept that. And in fact, I have to embrace that. I need to face that and take care of that. Because by denying it, I deny myself. I am those mistakes."

Pitt mentioned Jolie's name only once during his interview with GQ, when he told the reporter that he should go see her film. But he did talk about the five kids the two share, and the struggle of working out a custody deal amidst a divorce.

"We're both doing our best," he said. "I heard one lawyer say, 'No one wins in court -- it's just a matter of who gets hurt worse.' And it seems to be true. You spend a year just focused on building a case to prove your point and why you're right and why they're wrong, and it's just an investment in vitriolic hatred. I just refuse. And fortunately my partner in this agrees. It's just very, very jarring for the kids, to suddenly have their family ripped apart."

Pitt said he isn't interested in the animosity that can too often accompany a breakup, particularly when the couple has children.

"I see it happen to friends," he said. "I see where the one spouse literally can't tell their own part in it, and is still competing with the other in some way and wants to destroy them and needs vindication by destruction, and just wasting years on that hatred. I don't want to live that way."