The world knows everything about her: about an unhappy childhood, tattoos, children and husbands, about a quarrel with her father and the death of her mother. It would never occur to anyone to feel sorry for her — with her fees, her lips and “her Brad”. But she treats the world differently. Meeting with Angelina Jolie, who regrets many and regrets nothing.
I am sitting in the luxurious lobby of an upscale London hotel. The chandeliers borrow their curves from Beardsley’s graphics, the gilded porter’s desk, the faltering London light heroically bursts through the Art Nouveau stained-glass windows… A lingering smell of wealth hangs in the air. Or is it the smell of something precious perfume, emanating from a couple who occupy the seats next to me, waiting for a car stuck in a traffic jam? Louis Vuitton baggage, dark skin, jet-black hair, light-coloured raw silk suit, thin mustache and beard outline. This is how he looks — like a sheikh away from his subjects. But what it is, is highly unclear. She is in a veil, in black silk from head to toe, it’s inconvenient for me to look at her, but I’m sure: if I studied a woman even in the closest way, I wouldn’t distinguish features behind a black veil, but as before I could only see narrow feet with dark red pedicure in sandals with thin heels, equally narrow hands and restless, unthinkably long fingers … And suddenly these fingers squeeze the armrests. So that the knuckles turn white. And from under the flowing black cover comes in astonishment, slowly, in syllables: «An-sha-lina Sho-li …»
The one who made an appointment for me here came. The one that everyone on our planet knows: proletarians and magnates, feminists and inhabitants of harems, both in Africa and in Greenland. She wears silver rings, silver bracelets on her right arm and a black scrunchie on her left, five dollar sandals, black jeans and a sleeveless tank top. Well, the famous tattoos … However, the surrounding interior redundancy fades. Because she is like this: although she studied the acting profession according to the Stanislavsky system, although she believes that an artist should find a hero in himself as some part of his own nature, she still does not respect the “proposed circumstances”. And it doesn’t fit under any. Business-like inquiring whether I am “the same Jan”, she rushes to the Piano Bar, so that both I and her guard can hardly keep up with her. Which is understandable: the power of character and the length of the legs give her a certain head start. She orders a glass of wine. The crimson liquid around her face suddenly makes something obvious that I hadn’t noticed even when «it» took up the entire screen in the movie theater.
She has unusually clear eyes. Clear, but, like in her biography, in her career, in her dramatic success, they have a “lining”, another side, a dark one. They are blue, but brown in places. Some kind of insidious two-layered — these happen in children, when nature and heredity seem to have not yet chosen a certain color. It really has something from a child, from a teenager — impetuosity and unwillingness to “wear” this particular body, or something.
This is what I decided to ask from the very beginning — about the body of Angelina Jolie. However, this question was not so easy to formulate.
Psychologies: It is widely known that in your youth you…how should I say…experimented with your body. They cut themselves. They even painted with their own blood. What was it? Protest? Dissatisfaction with your body?
Angelina Jolie: Then I felt…not alive enough. So empty that she didn’t want to live. I wanted to feel life. And she cut to feel pain, to see her blood. This means that my heart is beating, that I am alive, I am real … I did not know where to direct my passion, my rage. If you knew me then … I was more brutal than my reputation. And I was a very soft and vulnerable person. Bad girls cry more than good girls.
You spoke about all this openly. Do you regret those confessions?
A. D .: On the contrary, I’m glad I did. And this tattoo in memory of youth. (With a shrug, Jolie points to the tattoo on her right forearm, the subtitle of Tennessee Williams’ play, «A Prayer for the Wild at Heart, Caged.») I’m glad because now people who are also «caged in a cage» come up to me, also do not see meaning in their lives and also mutilate themselves. They ask me the same question: why did I do it and why did I stop? My, perhaps, pathological frankness helps others to stop. They feel: I myself was on the edge, and therefore I sincerely do not judge anyone. So I don’t regret anything. Never regretted. And I do not believe in the fruitfulness of regrets. While you regret, you are ashamed of yourself. As long as you’re ashamed, you’re in a cage. And I’m not ashamed of my life. Now I’m not ashamed.
What influenced? Success?
A. D .: Oh no, success and fame can only add fuel to the fire. I lived through it — to be successful and to know that I was completely useless and devoid of purpose. So-called fame is poison if you are successful but don’t see yourself as successful as a person. Everything changes when you have children. Foster or family, it doesn’t matter. You begin to somehow control this life, even if some of the rabies still continues. After all, being a mother or father is an irreversible connection with reality. I have always missed this. All my previous relationships — before Maddox appeared in my life (the first child Jolie adopted. — Note ed.) — were not completely honest, and I did not feel they were real.
Who do you trust in life?
A. D .: Nobody. I do not trust this strange word — «trust». Trust cannot be complete! My mother was my closest friend. But I knew that she could do something (certainly in my interests, but — without my knowledge) that would hurt me … But this is not a problem. Not a problem if you learn to trust yourself. Now I look in the mirror and see something different than you. Not a spectacular tall woman (she smiles ironically). I see a person who has reached an inner truce with himself. I see a woman with children. I see the mark on my face that those I love leave every day. Some people like my looks, some don’t. But this beauty of inner peace exists for everyone. (A pianist sits down at the piano in the bar where we are talking. And he starts playing something from an early Elton John. Jolie pauses and looks towards the piano.) You know, my mother said, this song was played at her and her father’s wedding.
I wanted to ask about parents. Maybe the lack of trust you’re experiencing is because of their divorce, because of your difficult relationship with your father?
A. D .: And I don’t have a relationship with my father — once he made them too public, saying through the press that he was allegedly afraid for my mental health. Why did he need this publicity? He’s just doing it for his fame. I do not intend to pay this tribute. It is enough that I have sacrificed the freedom to live a normal life as a normal person. I will not sacrifice inner freedom, freedom of personal relationships. And he sacrificed his relationship with me. That’s how it ended between us. Although, when I was a child, he was an amazing father. He coached a football team, and I was the only girl in it … Helped with the first roles … But over time, I began to see him differently. And then this story…
Six years have passed, but do you still feel resentment?
A. D .: Offense — no, not anymore. But conclusions have been drawn. I realized that I need to be with my children. Always be. I become like my mother. She did not recognize the distance between herself and us — me and Jamie (actor and director James Haven — Jolie’s brother. — Approx. ed.). She was passive in many ways, too delicate. Even when she was about to yell at me to finally clean my room. And as a result, she couldn’t. But when something happened to us, she fought like a tigress. As the years go by, I look more and more like her. And her experience certainly influenced me. Her father’s betrayals were very traumatic for her, I already understood this as a teenager. And therefore, she could never have an affair with a married man. I never wanted to deal with a deceiver — in the morning I could not look at myself in the mirror … I always sympathized with my mother — in the sense that I sympathized. I felt in unison with her. I just don’t understand how she could raise us alone.
But this is not a rare case — a woman after a divorce focuses on children and never gets married.
A. D .: I understand this, I myself was alone with Maddox for several years. But there were such amazing moments, bittersweet, when my child took the first steps, when I was approved for a luxurious role. And I didn’t even have anyone to share my joy with. I’ve never had this desire to burst into someone’s shoulder. And no, there is no such ability. I even regret that I can’t. But I always had this strange feeling: nothing can be achieved with sobs, hugs at a difficult moment will not help … I even somehow feel embarrassed when they hug me. In general, an open expression of feelings … This is definitely not for me. But joy must be shared with those you love. And with emptiness, with despair, it is better to deal with it yourself.
How did you decide to adopt Maddox when you had no mothering experience and were still very young, that is, with the ability to have children of your own?
A. D .: Well, I didn’t make up my mind. Everything was decided without me. I did not want to have children — I was internally destructive, aimed at self-destruction. I never thought that I could ever become so balanced as to be responsible for a child. But in Cambodia, during the filming of Lara Croft — Tomb Raider, I decided to visit a refugee camp — all of a sudden, I thought I could do something to help. I saw these people, tiny orphans … Well, I got involved. And the next time she came to Cambodia from the UN. There were 14 orphans in that orphanage, and Maddox was the smallest, he was sleeping, I lingered near him, and the teacher did not even ask me if I wanted to hold him, but simply gave him to me. He didn’t wake up. Then they bathed him. He didn’t wake up again. Then I held him in my arms again, and suddenly he opened his eyes and looked at me for a long, long look. And smiled. I realized: this is my child, because I can make him happy. He was three months old. At seven I brought him to America.
It was then that your marriage to Billy Bob Thornton fell apart…
A. D .: This is just a coincidence. Or… You see, we were together because together we managed to laugh. We both went through self-dread, disappointment, addiction, pain. And in his life, and in mine, heroin was always somewhere nearby, sometimes moving close … Both he and I carried a certain drama in themselves, but when they were nearby, for some reason they began to laugh. Next to each other, we calmed down. Billy composed music in his studio in the basement, I sat on the second floor with books — I read for days. I began to think more, delve into myself less, took up charity work. When I married Billy, I was marrying the person I wanted to be. Billy is an amazing prose writer, a real composer, but most importantly, he perceives the world as an artist. I wanted to be the same. And, living next to him, of course, grew up …
It turns out that we got from each other everything that we could give. And they didn’t need each other. What united us, separated us. Not Mad. The time when Billy and I separated was difficult for me, but then I was incredibly happy. And just like a woman. Because of Mad. I was alone with him, no one helped, I even had to open the door for the postman in a blanket a couple of times — I just could not figure out how to put on a shirt if I was holding it. She only took a shower when he fell asleep. Even when I was brushing my teeth, he, who then learned to walk, held on to my leg. And all this said only one thing — Mad is the best thing that happened to me in my life.
And then, having two adopted children, you decided to have Shiloh.
A. D .: And here it was as if there was no my decision. Conscious, anyway. It’s all about Brad. He told me from the very beginning that he wanted to have his own children. I replied that I wanted to adopt more. I never wanted biological motherhood, I don’t believe in blood ties, in the fact that the feeling of a family is provided by blood relationship. I am convinced that a family needs to be earned. Well, Brad did not resume that conversation. Adopted Mad and Zahara. They loved him and he them. I was completely abandoned by these fears — that Brad will always see my children as adopted, a little, but still strangers. It was clear they were his family. And at some point I somehow took a fresh look at him when he was doing arithmetic with Mad and Zakhara and patiently explained what would be left of five sticks if four were put in a box … And suddenly I felt that I had nothing against in order to get pregnant. I even want to. I can’t explain why. All this is from a number of acutely perceptible, but poorly pronounced. Maybe I’ve never been happy enough to bring someone into the world myself, and now I feel happy enough?
You have real estate in different countries, you live, it seems, on the move. Where is your home?
A. D .: I don’t even like the idea of taking root. Most of all I love the moment when we go somewhere with the whole family and I collect all our documents in my purse. It turns out a bunch of colorful passports: Cambodian Mada, Vietnamese Paksa, Ethiopian Zahara, Namibian Shiloh (she was born in Namibia), French twins (they are from Nice), my American passport and even a UN ID … And when Mad runs around the market in Addis Ababa and does not even realize that everyone around is black, but he is Asian and different from those around him … In my family, I recreated the model of humanity in an ideal form. What other house can you dream of?
Private bussiness
- 1975 June 4 in Los Angeles in the family of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand second child is born, Angelina Jolie Voight (brother James is three years older than her).
- 1976 Divorce of parents, Bertrand with children goes to New York.
- 1982 Debut in the film of the cult American director Hal Ashby «Looking for a way out».
- 1986 Return to Los Angeles, 11-year-old Angie is studying at the children’s acting studio.
- 1990 Works as a model.
- 1995 Marries actor Johnny Lee Miller.
- 1996 On the set of the drama False Fire, Annette Haywood-Carter begins a personal relationship with actress Jenny Shimizu.
- 1998 Golden Globe for his role in the film «George Wallace» by John Frankenheimer.
- 1999 «Golden Globe» for his role in the film «Gee» by Michael Christopher; breaks up with Miller and marries actor and musician Billy Bob Thornton.
- 2000 Oscar for her role in «Girl, Interrupted» by James Mangold.
- 2001 Adopts Cambodian Maddox Shivan; becomes a UN Goodwill Ambassador; «Lara Croft — Tomb Raider» by Simon West.
- 2003 Divorce from Thornton.
- 2004 «Alexander» by Oliver Stone.
- 2005 Adopts Ethiopian Zahara Marley; On the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Doug Liman begins a personal relationship with Brad Pitt.
- 2006 Birth of daughter Shiloh Nouvel.
- 2007 Adopts Vietnamese Pax Tien with Pitt.
- 2008 «Changeling» by Clint Eastwood; the birth of twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline; «Especially dangerous» Timur Bekmambetov.
- 2009 Featured in Philip Noyce’s Salt.