Brad Pitt doesn't have many friends.

The Hollywood heartthrob made a decision to shrink his circle of pals so he could spend as much time as possible with his wife Angelina Jolie and their six children - Maddox, 11, Pax, nine, Zahara, eight, Shiloh, six, and four-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne - and he has never been happier.

He admitted: ''I have very few friends. I have a handful of close friends and I have my family and I haven't known life to be any happier.

''I'm making things. I just haven't known life to be any happier.''

The 49-year-old actor fully supported Angelina's decision to have a double mastectomy in February after learning she had an 87 per cent chance of developing breast cancer because she carries the BRCA1 gene mutation.

The 37-year-old actress went ahead with the operation so she can be around for her kids and Brad insists they can be no better motivation as the couple love the ''chaos'' of their big household and the bond they all share.

In an interview with the new US issue of Esquire magazine, he explained: ''I always thought that if I wanted to do a family, I wanted to do it big. I wanted there to be chaos in the house ... there's constant chatter in our house, whether it's giggling or screaming or crying or banging.

''I love it. I love it. I love it. I hate it when they're gone. I hate it. Maybe it's nice to be in a hotel room for a day - 'Oh, nice, I can finally read a paper.' But then, by the next day, I miss that cacophony, all that life.''

Brad has also opened up about his past dabbling in recreational drug use and says he needed to make a change as he felt he was wasting his life.

He said: ''For a long time I thought I did too much damage - drug damage. I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing. I spent years f***ing off.

''But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity. It was a conscious change. This was about a decade ago. It was an epiphany.''