Eating noodles with a beard turned out to be the Pitts for Hollywood star Brad Pitt.

The Se7en star had to be schooled in eating noodles on Japanese TV last night.

The actor appeared on popular chat show Smap X Smap along with director Quentin Tarantino, to promote Inglourious Basterds, which opens in Japanese cinemas on 20 November.

But Pitt’s facial hair clearly got in the way as he tried to slurp soba noodles through his braided beard, causing him to ask the hosts: “What’s the trick to eating noodles here? You just slurp them?”

During the show, Pitt struggled to get a word in over motor-mouth Tarantino, prompting one of the Smap hosts to hold Tarantino’s hands while telling him to calm down in Japanese – much to Pitt’s amusement.

But Pitt defended him, saying: “You can’t tame him, you can’t tame him.

“If you tether him, we all lose… don’t chain my man!”