Murdered journalist Daniel Pearl's widow Mariane has praised Brad Pitt for being the only producer to have read her book ahead of movie A Mighty Heart.

Pitt acquired the film rights to Mariane's 2003 memoir of the same name - which tells the story of the Wall Street Journal reporter's 2002 kidnap and subsequent murder by Islamic extremists in Pakistan - before he started dating Angelina Jolie in 2005.

Mariane - who is played by Jolie in the movie adaptation of her book - admits she was stunned when Pitt told her he'd read her book and been moved by it.

She says, "I wasn't even sure if I wanted to do a movie. Everybody was using terrorism for their own political agenda and, really, this is a story about Danny. But when I met Brad - well, out of all the studios, he was the only one who had actually read the book."

"He was the only one who I had a conversation about what happened to Danny. And I could see that he wanted to have children and raise them in a world of tolerance. I don't think I could have done it if I didn't feel a direct connection to Brad and, then, Angie."