ANGELINA JOLIE: "MARRIAGE IS DIFFERENT ... IT IS PLEASANT TO BE A HUSBAND AND WIFE"
We chatted with the actress about her children, her marriage and her role as a UNHCR ambassador and she makes it clear that she is an unusual superstar.
Sydney, Australia, the summer of 2013 has just begun. On Cockatoo Island we find a slim woman standing in the middle of a dusty film set. She protects herself from the sun with a hat while staring up at the leaden sky. It is waiting for the clouds to pass.
"The parachute always lands in the wrong place," she murmurs, partly to herself and partly to the group of people around her. We're going to do a few more takes, see if it lands well. "
Sure enough, the woman in tight black jeans and muddy boots is Angelina Jolie. She is accompanied by a crowd of tough-looking, unshaven guys who also wear boots and shorts. Nearby, smoking unfiltered Camel cigarettes, are a dozen actors who look painfully thin. “We've hired a lot of skinny guys,” Jolie explains half-jokingly. These extras are supposed to play American prisoners of war in a Japanese internment camp located near Tokyo during World War II. In the film, they are waiting for an aerial food delivery to arrive while reading war newspapers. They seem hungry, angry, and restless.
Settled on this island in Sydney's Bay, Jolie directs Unbroken, a film based on Laura Hillenbrand's best-seller, the biography of Louis Zamperini, a rowdy Italian-American Olympic runner who became a pilot during World War II and turned out to be a hero. Zamperini, played by British actor Jack O'Connell, crashed in the Pacific in 1943. He spent 47 days lost at sea, adrift, in a lifeboat - the US authorities left him for dead - before he was killed. picked up by the Japanese. He was tortured for two years until he was finally released at the end of the war.
Throughout the filming of Unbroken, Jolie and Zamperini, who died at 97 last July, became close. “A tender and fatherly figure,” says the 39-year-old director. I loved that Louis was a very normal person. He was neither the tallest nor the most handsome nor the most confident. During his youth he was a disaster. ”He pauses. But we can draw a moral about life: there is greatness in everyone's life ”.
In their caravans, the main actors are immersed in their characters. Louis Zamperini's arch-enemy (in real life) was a bloodthirsty sergeant named Mutsuhiro Watanabe. For this role, Jolie has hired Miyavi, a striking Japanese pop star singer (whose real name is Takamasa Ishihara). Miyavi, 33, recalls being encouraged by Jolie to delve so deeply into the jailer's mind that, after a particularly intense scene - where he had to beat up Zamperini - he says he felt such physical disgust that he ended up vomiting. “For me it was a terrible torture to have to hate the other actors, I had to feel hatred for them. When it was my turn to hit them, I thought about protecting my family. And at the same time, he didn't want to just be the bad guy either. I wanted to bring humanity to the character. [Mutsuhiro] was a mad sadist, but he was also weak and traumatized. "
When Miyavi met Jolie in Tokyo ("In a nightclub!" He jokes), he didn't trust her to be able to get into that character's skin. “It is a story that continues to be painful for my country. But she told me that she wanted to build a bridge between all the countries in conflict and she was very persuasive. " Even so, after filming some of the most violent torture scenes, she confesses: "I couldn't stop crying."
Unbroken has a budget of € 52 million, has its sights set on the Oscars and Universal approval, plus a very unique pedigree (Joel and Ethan Coen worked painstakingly on the script). It is a totally different movie from Jolie's last work as a director, In the Land of Blood and Honey. This film, from 2011, although surprising and intense, was much simpler and far removed from the Hollywood style.
Jolie hardly had to make a great effort to shoot this film so complex historically and so loaded with political overtones. Conflicts, battles and trauma caused by war are topics with which she is very familiar, as she is a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She travels the same dangerous dirt roads as rescue teams, medics, and foreign correspondents. In these circumstances there is no room for red carpets or Donatella Versace dresses. Their task is to develop UNHCR's advocacy and support campaign and to participate in high-level mediations in difficult emergency situations. Anyone in the world of diplomacy knows that this is all very hard work.
Over the past 14 years, since she began her work as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, she has been involved in more than 50 such missions, which have become an important part of her life. She sits for hours on the hard floor of the refugee camps, notebook in hand. He goes from talking about the Islamic State of Iraq to the famine South Sudan is facing and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. "Both you and I know the horrors of war," he tells me on set. She is holding a styrofoam glass with vegetable soup and some fresh juice, which she sips from - she doesn't have time to eat calmly, hoping she can shoot a shot before the power goes out. She is not wearing makeup, just a generous layer of sunscreen. Her long hair - which has been slightly lightened by exposure to the Australian sun - has been tucked up under a floppy hat. “I want young children to be able to see this movie. I want something that I can offer my children: a vital message ”.
One of their children, Maddox (who is now 13 years old), wanders around the set observing the activity and chatting with the actors. He will work as a production assistant on his mother's next film, in which he will direct his husband, Brad Pitt. But for now, her five young children — Pax, who just turned 11; Zahara, 9; Shiloh, 8, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 6, are in a spacious rented house in Sydney, a short drive from the shoot, where Jolie dines as a family with them most nights.
Angelina Jolie is not used to complaining. I have accompanied her during several visits in conflict zones and if something has caught my attention, it is that she does not have the slightest facet of a diva. Typically, you arrive early for meetings and sit quietly, waiting with a book or notes. No entourage accompanies her. She travels lightly with just one piece of luggage - a valuable lesson she has learned from working for humanitarian organizations and having to jump from helicopters in remote locations. She is polite and does not complain when she is tired or unwell. Her priorities have always been clear. She has a single personal assistant (who is actually one of her closest friends), tutors and a large trusted team, who work at home on the children's education, who do not go to school. Often the family gets together in a hotel suite or a villa and they have dinner together or watch a movie. Both Jolie and Pitt are very active in their roles as parents. For example, during Jolie's day off, they took the children overnight to Sydney's Taronga Zoo on an organized tour.
At his surprise wedding, held last August at his home in the south of France, everyone collaborated. "We celebrated the wedding together," he tells me. There was no cake, so Pax made one. The children made little cushions for wedding rings, and Knox practiced with an acorn that kept falling off the cushion. Brad's mother [Jane Pitt] picked some flowers from the field and made garlands. " The children helped them write their vows. “They don't expect us to never fight, but they made us promise that we would always apologize if we did fight. They asked us, 'Will you do it?' And we replied, 'Okay!'
For those who know them, it is as if they have been married for a long time: their esteem, respect and affection are shown and they are often spoken using names such as "darling." Do you feel now that you have started a different relationship? "Yes, it is different," he reflects. It's nice to be husband and wife. "
A little over a year ago, Brad Pitt, while still his fiancé, starred in another movie set in World War II, Hearts of Steel, almost on the other side of the planet, in England. So they both began exchanging handwritten notes - which were sent by post - because that was what couples did during the war. Those kinds of details and authenticity are important to Jolie. In Bosnia, during the filming of In the Land of Blood and Honey, she interviewed war correspondents to ensure that they were faithfully portrayed on film. She studied the history of the former Yugoslavia and asked her questions with veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who was President Clinton's envoy in the Balkans and special representative in Pakistan and Afghanistan under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Similarly, Jolie conscientiously prepares for her humanitarian missions, advised by trusted UN advisers, foreign policy experts and fellow members of the Council on Foreign Relations, of which she is a member. Not many of the members of the Directors Guild of America can boast of this.
Jolie was drawn to the Zamperini story because of her strength, her survival instincts, her unwavering faith during a terrifying situation, and her steadfast convictions. Fortunately, they were neighbors: from where she lives, in the Hollywood Hills, she could see his house. She remembers pushing hard to direct her story, and when Universal finally gave her the green light, she asked Pitt to come out and raise the American flag so Zamperini could see it. Then she called him on the phone and, triumphantly, said, "Louis, look out the window!"
Jolie accompanied Zamperini during her last days of life. She is proud to have been able to show him an early version of the film, even though their moments together were bittersweet. At first she was nervous thinking about what his reaction would be. "I got excited much more easily than he did," he explains. I went to take care of him and, actually, it was he who ended up taking care of me.
Together, sitting in the hospital, they contemplated the scenes of the film, full of adversity, resistance and, finally, triumph… There is Zamperini as a young man, with his brother, who encouraged him to cultivate his faculties; running in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin; the plane crash that finally changed his life; the difficult days he spent on the high seas and the excruciating suffering he endured in the internment camp. "It was a very moving experience," Jolie says through tears, her voice failing, "to see a person contemplating his own life, someone who was physically so strong but to whom his body is not responding." It is clear that Jolie also refers to the ovarian cancer that in 2007 ended the life of her mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, at the age of 56.
At one point he remembers that Zamperini's condition began to improve. “[Doctors] said that he was exercising to breathe on his own. And that's what he always told me: 'You train, you fight harder than everyone else and, in the end, you win. If you get down to it, you do it. ' At this point, Jolie gets excited and then collects herself. Poetically, she endured 40 days and 40 nights ”. And then Zamperini passed away. His death made her even more determined to spread the Unbroken message. "He didn't want others to see how extraordinary he was, but to realize how extraordinary we all can be," he explains. Her life at first wasn't exactly perfect. And it serves as a reminder that the spirit of each one, the will to do good and defend things, is something very, very powerful ”.
TRAVELING WITH HER
I first met Angelina Jolie three years ago when she contacted me about a book I wrote about the Bosnian war, Madness Visible, partially based on my work as a reporter for Vanity Fair. She sent me a note, something along the lines of: "We're on the same page." At that time, she had just finished her film on the horrors of the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. When she and Pitt went to Foča, the scene of one of the harshest "rape fields," Bosnian citizens were taken aback. She had also learned that a number of correspondents who had covered the conflict (myself included) were skeptical. On the street you could hear: "How the hell is Angelina Jolie - or Lara Croft, who was more like how I saw her - be able to translate this blatant scandal into a movie?" In the end, she made one of the best films and faithfully portrayed the war.
I often ask her what the next chapter in her life will be. (In fact, she just signed on to direct another film: Africa, about paleontologist Richard Leakey and her campaign to save the elephants in Kenya.) And yet, beyond her creative passions, I sense that perhaps there is a brighter future on the horizon. Will she end up getting into politics? Or, say, in diplomacy, like actress Shirley Temple? Jolie tends to tease questions like this. He replies that he still wants to dedicate himself to writing and directing. But her trajectory is clearer the more she develops her own projects to promote human well-being around the world.
“When you dedicate yourself to humanitarian work, you are aware that you have to take politics into account. If you really want to change things drastically, then you have a responsibility. But honestly, I don't know in what role I could be more useful: I am aware of what I do for a living and that could make it less possible ”.
LEBANON, FEBRUARY 2014
During a break from post-production on Unbroken, Jolie lands at Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport. Upon arrival she finds herself with too many hands to shake, photos and too much political protocol. However, Jolie is discreet, dressed in her usual work uniform: tight pants, dancers and a loose blouse. She almost always opts for black, white, navy blue or gray clothes.
She really seems to be in a good mood, even though she just flew 12,000 kilometers. She is one of those people who hug you tightly. When I tell him that she is fantastic, she shrugs her shoulders and says: "I have a good dark circles." We head to the Becá Valley. The refugee crisis there is serious, with more than three million people having fled the war in Syria to Jordan, Turkey and many of them to Lebanon or elsewhere. The next day, Jolie spends the entire day with children who have been displaced, looking for ways to get around the bureaucracy and helping prioritize their needs. On her way to a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister, she stops at UNHCR's field office to have breakfast with local staff. One of the officials, the one in charge of organizing the cars that link Beirut with the Becá, wants to take a picture with her, for her mother, as he explains. A sizable group of high-ranking officials and local politicians is waiting to speak. However, the moment the man expresses her desire, she approaches her and with a big smile, poses for the photo. "For her mother," she says.
BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA, MARCH 2014
A month later, Jolie and I found ourselves aboard Queen Elizabeth II's private jet, which has taken off from a small airbase outside London. For humanitarian reasons, William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, who is also there, with her head buried in a pile of papers, seated next to Jolie, has been allowed the use of the plane - She is now First Secretary of State and leader of the House of Commons. After a stopover in Sarajevo, we headed to Srebrenica, the scene of the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys during the Bosnian war.
Hague, an acclaimed Conservative party statesman, became aware of Jolie's activities when his Bosnian adviser, Arminka Helic, persuaded him to sit down and watch In the Land of Blood and Honey. Hague is not exactly the most willing to openly show his emotions, but the movie touched him. The two met and began to collaborate in what would become the PSVI (Initiative for the Prevention of Sexual Violence). They traveled to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2013, shortly after Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy. At first, he kept a stoic silence about his operation. However, a few months later she published an article in The New York Times to try to help other women who had to face a painful decision similar to her own. The beauty of the text is that there is not an iota of self-pity in it. In fact, he encouraged other women. "Personally, I don't feel less of a woman at all," she wrote. The fact of having made this important decision has given me strength that does not diminish my femininity in the least ”. All of this meant a lot coming from one of the sexiest women in the world. It was a watershed moment in her public image. If Jolie was ever the rebellious girl in Hollywood, with that officially came the end of that facet. (On the trip to the Congo, she did her job without mentioning her operation. “If she was in pain, we never found out,” says a colleague who was with her).
LONDON, JUNE 2014
Jolie is in London with Hague, as the co-host of the world summit to end sexual violence in conflict situations. She has brought the whole family with her and they occupy a suite in a West End hotel. During those four days she meets with representatives of countries such as Liberia, Congo and Sri Lanka. On the last day of the summit, it is announced that Jolie will be named by Queen Elizabeth Great Lady of the British Empire, one of the highest honors awarded in the United Kingdom. That night a simple family dinner takes place in a Japanese restaurant. Pitt and the children celebrate the birthday of the actor's godson. That night Jolie seems calm and relaxed as she sips a vodka mojito. She is excited about the new distinction (occasionally awarded to Americans), but has other things on her mind. The following week she will travel to Thailand for another UN mission, this time on the occasion of World Refugee Day. The country has been rocked by a political crisis following massive protests and street violence, but Jolie appears unfazed.
After dinner — grilled sushi and yakitori — Jolie returns to her hotel, kicks off her heels and eats nachos while watching the World Cup on TV: Holland-Spain. Every now and then Pitt jellies and screams. A friend enters the room to ask her about preparing the family's luggage. Her daughter Zahara enters and leans toward her. "What's wrong, honey?" Jolie asks him. Sticking her face to her mother's, Zahara tells her a secret that leads to a laugh. Later, Jolie, imitating her, says in a low voice: "He told me that Mad is making out with his girlfriend." In these moments, before being a humanitarian worker, director or Hollywood star, Jolie is, first and foremost, a mother.
In 2005, the actress, then 29 years old, gave an extraordinary interview to Vanity Fair. It was extraordinary because the Angelina Jolie of ten years ago is not the same woman I have sitting before me, serene and intellectually confident. At that time she was talking about sex, about her romantic past, about her scandals and about her ex-husband, Billy Bob Thornton. Currently, it talks in detail about how to get governments to react and recognize victims of violence or how to manage impunity so that rape is not used as a weapon during war. She almost looks like a senator or a diplomat. Of course, while he talks, he sips a mojito.
MALTA, SEPTEMBER 2014
Jolie calls me while shooting her new movie, By the sea. As always, you are multitasking. Not only does she direct Brad Pitt ("Some friends have told us we're crazy ... A movie about a married couple going through a rough patch ... and I'm directing it to him"), but she also stars in the film together to the French actress Mélanie Laurent. It's their first day of filming, and the kids are there. Over the weekend, a UN contingent will travel to Malta to discuss how to reduce incidents of immigrants dying at sea, and Jolie will meet with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres. And yet Jolie wants to chat about Louis Zamperini, about the final issue of Unbroken, about the situation of Syrian refugees, about ISIS and the brutal murders of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. (She once played the widow of murdered reporter Daniel Pearl, Mariane Pearl, in Michael Winterbottom's film An Invincible Heart.)
And she also wants to talk about the future. The question arises again: Do you see yourself in the next few years embarking on a political, diplomatic or public service career? "I am open to whatever comes," she answers and seems, as always, ready, brave and seductive.
