Angelina Jolie spent much of 2006 making headlines in her real life roles as mother, lover and humanitarian, but now she’s back on the big screen, disappearing into another compelling character—the long-suffering wife of a Central Intelligence Agency operative (Matt Damon) who neglects him family as he becomes consumed by Cold War paranoia in The Good Shepherd, director Robert De Niro’s Godfather-style saga of the CIA’s history. Jolie herself is far less secretive than the CIA, and she gave Hollywood.com a peek into her world.
Hollywood.com: You play a mother who is desperate to keep her son from falling in to the CIA, which has come between her and her husband, in this film. How did your motherhood in real life help you connect to this character?
Angelina Jolie: Actually, that is the one thing that kept me grounded to her and connected to her, because there was so much about her I didn’t identify with. But her love and her commitment to her son, and certainly having lost her own family to this world of CIA and now her husband and the fear that her son would get involved in this kind of dangerous, silent world and that becoming a reality, and how that would feel—so yeah, in particular fighting for him, it was very personal.
HW: You have your share of fans who would attest that you’re one of the most desirable women in the world. How did you get into the head of a rejected, unloved wife?
AJ: Well. I do have two divorces behind me (laughs) but I’m still good friends with them, so it’s still okay. But I think it’s actually easier to play that kind of stuff when you do have a balanced home. Because I think if I did have alcoholism in my personal life or my mother or somebody close to me, if I did have that experience it might have been much more uncomfortable to get in there. And that kind of relationship with a man—I’ve never had that in my life, because I’ve always married artists, so they’re always a very talkative and expressive bunch. So, no, it was just bizarre, but it was part of the character which was interesting, because she did feel lost and she did feel trapped and confused, and so I did as well.
HW: You have a history of playing strong-willed characters, but this one is not really operating in the realm of some of your past roles. She’s often more timid and passive.
AJ: I do see her in the end as being as strong as a woman could be at that time, but did like that there were many things about her that were broken, and often I don’t get to play that part. And I think that’s why it took a while for Bob, for us, to be able to decide that I should play that part, because she is more subservient, she is more vulnerable, she is very broken. And as an actress it was a great challenge and as a woman, as much as there are certain things in my life I do feel strongly about, there are pieces of me that are broken.
HW: Your director, Robert De Niro, said you really connected with the character on some level.
AJ: I think that kind of feeling alone. I didn’t necessarily feel that in a marriage per se, but in my life, I’ve often felt it. She’s surrounded by a lot of people, there are a lot of secrets, a lot of quiet, a lot of people just accepting, and as much as she’s broken and she’s that person, she’s also the only person that is desperate to scream out and try to get some reaction, something honest—something. And I’ve found that in my life a lot. I tend to want to be that person that I can’t tolerate, and it would break me. I would start drinking or something terrible if I was in a situation where I was surrounded by lies or quiet or secrets—you know, not just a real life.
HW: De Niro went to Russia and met with the KGB and Matt Damon spent time with CIA agents and their families. Did you do that kind of research as well?
AJ: I didn’t because most of the people they could all talk to were really the men in the CIA. And the women like Clover were kind of absent or had been quieted or moved to Arizona. She’s loosely based on a few people but yeah, it was almost impossible to talk to the women, and I think that the reality is that the women knew so little. There would be very little to talk about. My choice was almost to really talk to nobody, really understand nothing and be trapped in this world where sometimes De Niro’s character would come in and I hadn’t focused on exactly who he was in the script and exactly what he did. I didn’t do my research, so he walked in and I wasn’t really sure who he was. And that was kind of how I just stayed in the dark.
HW: How did you feel about seeing yourself aged in the film, and what kind of thoughts that prompt about aging gracefully in your off-screen life? AJ: My mom is aging gracefully, so if I’m anything like my mother…she’s lovely. I love age on a face. I know in this business, there’s not a lot of leverage for the way people have an opinion about how people should look, but I personally love it, and I love to age in movies. I love to see my face old in different ways and I actually feel there’s something very comforting about feeling yourself as an older woman. You just know that when you get to that point, you’re going to have earned so many different things and be rooted in so many different ways that it seems there’s kind of a comfort to it. But Clover was a little different, because I hopefully will not break apart as she did, because she had these big yellow contacts and yellow teeth — you may not have noticed it, but I had the alcohol aging, if you look closely with her. There are a lot of broken capillaries and a lot of yellow. That wasn’t looking in the mirror and saying, ‘I’ll look like this.’ This is what I will look like if I start drinking.
HW: Has your humanitarian activism around the world influenced the kinds of roles you’re now hoping to play? Do you look at scripts from a more social or political perspective?
AJ: No, I think it’s important to just have fun and not take everything so seriously, because I think there’s a big room for entertainment in this world. That’s most of the movies I go to with my kids. That’s part of what we do. I’m not a politician. I am just an actor, and just supposed to entertain and tell stories, so I remember that. But certainly when a film project comes along like this one, or like A Mighty Heart, the Mariane Pearl story, they are ones that take a priority in my life and are ones that I enjoy more in a different way and are a very different experience. But I think the thing right now that makes the big choice is how long is it shooting? I don’t think I’ve shot more than seven weeks on a movie in two years. I need to make sure I have time with my kids.
HW: Your efforts to aid Cambodia are obviously very important to you. Are there other philanthropic efforts or projects that you’re hoping to initiate?
AJ: Yeah, there are many different things. I will continue to work with refugees, and I will never shift focus from them because I think it’s important, and it is where my heart lies. Cambodia—we just went back there and it’s changed so much over the years. It is now Millenium Village that Brad and I are supporting. It’s also 148,000 acres of protected forest, and it’s also many, many villagers, and it’s huge. A huge, huge project, which is not what I intended. But it’s wonderful, and I’m learning a lot. But we’re involved in many things—Brad’s work in New Orleans—we’re just trying to make sure we always stay focused, because our temptation is when we hear something that’s going on, we want to get involved. We’re working together on AIDS orphans and passing some legislation for them on their behalf, because there’s no one actually fighting for them, so we’ve put together a group of people that will do exactly that. For Zahara, as well, we want to do something in Ethiopia supporting an orphanage there, but I think we will figure out something specific, just so as Maddox will take over his project, we want her to take over hers. So we have to figure out what that is.
HW: Have Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez approached you about appearing in Sin City 2?
AJ: Yeah, we’ve talked about it, and I’ve read the comic and—I don’t think the film’s being made at this moment, so when it’s actually going to be made, I’m sure we’ll talk about it. It was a funny thing, because the idea came to me when I was pregnant, and so it was this idea—I’d been Clover and depressed and quiet, and I was feeling very maternal and pregnant, and it was this idea of sexy, violent and loud character, and I suddenly thought maybe after I’m pregnant, that’ll be nice to do. But it didn’t come at that time, but we are still talking about it. I have no idea when it might go and if I have time when it does, but I think they are very interesting projects, and I like the comics and I love him as a director, so it’s a possibility.
HW: And do you plan to work on a film with Brad again?
AJ: Who’s going watch the children?
–Reporting by Fred Topel
