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Director David Fincher's latest film, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," tells the story of a life lived while aging backwards. The tale, adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story of the same name, begins with a baby born with all of the wrinkles and arthritis of an 80-year-old man and follows his life as he grows into a semi-mobile senior, a middle-aged man and a strapping young adult. Brad Pitt plays Benjamin from the cradle to the grave – with more than a little help from some remarkable technology. Tonight on the Evening News, Katie Couric takes a behind-the-scenes look at how Pitt – er, at least Pitt from the neck up – went from elderly to infant … and everything in-between. Check out the clip after the jump to see Pitt demonstrating some of his, well, acting technique – and read on for an extended portion of our interview.

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Brad Pitt: This, you know … before, if you were attempting a film like this, you would have to plug in different actors or different ages … to … just to perform the thing. And … it always, I mean, becomes disjointed. Sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the actors kinda look alike. But they seldom have the same kind of personality, or verve, or even dignity.

And in this … we, for the first time, got an opportunity to play the character from childhood to death, from birth to old age, or, in my case, from old age, which was still young, to birth. And, we got to drive the performance all the way. It was an … incredible luxury. It'll become the norm. Right now, it's a luxury.

CBS News: But I understand you're saying that now, but I understand when you read the script, you said, "That's what I want. I want to play it all." And how did you?

Pitt: Well, you have to ...

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