Brad Pitt in Venice ahead of the screening of his latest film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. (AP)

Venice, Sept. 3 (Agencies): Brad Pitt says fatherhood is a lot of fun and he and Angelina Jolie are ready for a fifth child in their family.

Pitt and Jolie, with children in tow, came to Venice to promote his new film, about Western outlaw Jesse James, which is competing at the lagoon city’s film festival for the Golden Lion top award.

The family have one child of their own, and three that Jolie adopted internationally.

Asked by Italian state TV in a brief interview if the couple were ready for a fifth child, Pitt replied quickly: “Yeah, we’re ready,” without elaborating or indicating if they were planning another biological child or if they were planning to adopt.

“It’s the most fun I’ve ever had and also the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever experienced,” Pitt said yesterday when asked what it was like to become a family with four children in a short space of time. “I love it and can’t recommend it any more highly — although sleep is non-existent.”

Pitt and Jolie have a 15-month-old girl, Shiloh, born to the couple, and Jolie adopted three children, close in age: one from Cambodia, one from Ethiopia and one from Vietnam.

Having four small children “makes me much more efficient because when I work I really have to focus. I know I’ve less time to get things done. Actually, I’m quite pleased by it”, said Pitt.

The actor described The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring Pitt, Casey Affleck and Sam Shepherd, and directed by Andrew Dominik, as “more a gangster film than a Western”. Pitt plays James in the last year of his life as he lapses into paranoia over potential betrayal by accomplices and intimates, including young idoliser Ford, played by Affleck.

“I saw it ... as a guy who sensed impending doom, the inevitable end, who had been trapped in a facade and living an alias for so long and didn’t know a way around it,” Pitt said.