Angelina Jolie graces the new cover of Entertainment Weekly. A little too close for comfort? Nah, not with a face like that! Below is a bit of what she had to say during their interview. I ended up posting a lot of it because I found it all so interesting! I love her honesty. Also below are a couple more pictures from the shoot, one of which she wears a machine gun necklace designed by little Maddox! So cute! Check it out:
What convinced you to do the movie, Wanted?: “I was in between A Mighty Heart and Changeling, which were two very, very emotionally difficult films to do. And my mom had passed away in that year. And I’d had a baby. So everything in me was just feeling very fragile. And so, knowing myself, I thought, What I need to do most is get up and get focused and get aggressive and get out of myself a little bit. We discussed that at home — that that would be good for me. Then I read this and knew they were casting McAvoy, and I thought, That sounds really unusual. I met Timur and I knew that he’d include a story. I know that sounds odd, but a lot of action movies rely so much on generic special effects or a story we’ve heard before.”
The official production notes say you were very involved in working on your character’s dialogue.: “That’s probably the nice way of saying I cut all my lines. But that’s really the truth. It wasn’t that I cut them because they were bad. I just really felt like she didn’t talk very much. So that’s the producers’ way of being very polite and saying ”She was sculpting her character,” when I really just said, ”I don’t think I talk here. I don’t think I talk here either.’”
Do you worry that people will have a hard time squaring this gun-toting character with your role as a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador?: “They do seem quite incongruous.
I am a strong believer that without justice there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway. I’m somebody who’s very curious about the International Criminal Court and supportive of following through on the arrest warrants in Darfur. I’m not somebody that just wants to hold up a white flag and say, ”Let’s all just get along.” I think people that do horrible things should be held accountable. I don’t think like in Wanted — which is an action movie — people should [just] be killed. I think there should be trials and justice. But the idea behind Wanted is not that she’s a badass assassin that just likes to kill people. It’s that, if you ran into Hitler before he did everything, and you knew, should you shoot him? And I would. These assassins are getting lists: They find out who is going to slaughter other people ahead of time and they remove them. So that was the side of me that identified with her. But it is a confusing thing, certainly for rights activists. Don’t read too much into it. I am holding a gun, but there are so many people that have done so many horrible things… Pol Pot died a grandfather in the jungle, most likely of old age. Never was punished for what he did.”
Clint Eastwood is one of our most famous Republicans. Did you talk politics with him on the set?: “Actually, we don’t disagree as much as you’d think. I think people assume I’m a Democrat. But I’m registered independent and I’m still undecided. So I’m looking at McCain as well as Obama. Clint can teach me about things domestically and I’m more aware of some things internationally. So it was less a debate and more things we found interesting. But for the first few weeks I was just too nervous to get into any deep conversation!”
In many ways you’re a very polarizing figure. People either worship you or they can’t stand you. Have you thought about why that is?: “I’d like to think it’s because I’m not neither here nor there in my life. I think anybody that makes a decision about where they stand is going to cause strong opinions about them. But I think that’s what you should be hoping for in life, so I take that as a very good sign. That some people support me and some people really don’t like me tells me that I’m making decisions and I’m standing strong for something I believe in. I’m making choices in life. And that’s the right thing to do.”
Some people can’t reconcile your old persona, where you talked about knives and cutting, with your more recent identity as a mother and activist.: “But again, it’s not that different. The reason I talked about going through certain pains or even cutting myself is that I was already out the other side. I knew there were people that do that — and somehow are happy that somebody admitted they did and discussed how they got out of it. I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things, I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.”
Is there anything you’ve said that you wish you hadn’t? Like all that business about wearing the vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around your neck when you two were married?: “No! It was never a vial anyway. It was like a flower press. It was like from a slight cut on your finger and you press your fingerprint in. It was kind of a sweet gesture. I thought it was kind of romantic! I still love him dearly and think the world of him and I’m proud to have been his wife for a time. I don’t believe in regrets. It’s a dangerous habit to get into — it makes you pause in your life if you start thinking back and questioning yourself.”
Pretty soon you’ll have six kids all under the age of 8. Have you thought about how you’re physically going to be able to handle that?: “Well, we weren’t expecting twins! So it did shock us, and we jumped to six quickly. But we like a challenge. We really don’t know. His mom and dad are on standby to come out and help. And fortunately we can hire help if we need it, but we’re going to try as we usually do to balance it as well as we can. The only thing for us when a new child comes home is just balancing the others. Our real focus now is: How do we make sure that the babies’ coming is not upsetting to other kids and makes them feel included. They’re old enough to feel included to change diapers themselves, to feed bottles themselves, like if I pump into a bottle. We’re trying to find ways where it can be a fun group thing. But the hard thing is every single day trying to find time for each of them privately. ‘Cause that’s our big thing. With our eldest, we have that last half an hour at night; Shiloh tends to be the first up in the morning. Everybody gets special time so we can make sure we know where they’re at.”
What did you make of all the brouhaha over Jack Black’s spilling that you were having twins on the Today show?: “Poor Jack! Immediately when he saw Brad, he apologized. But we both told him very clearly that we had only waited because, as you do with any baby, but especially twins, you wait until all results are in on their health, and that we were past that point and if somebody had asked me directly, I would have said yes. So he didn’t do anything but take the heat himself.”
You and Brad aren’t married. How do you refer to each other?: “We have that problem all the time. I say ”partner” sometimes. ”Father of my children” is too long. But half the time people refer to us as, ”So, your wife this, your husband that.” We’ve stopped correcting everybody. It’s not a big intentional thing not to marry. We immediately were a family when we became a couple, and children were the priority, and we’re both legally committed to the children. And that seemed to be the right thing.”
What’s the deal with Brad’s new tattoo?: “I drew that. We went to Davos. It’s not that we were bored at the World Economic Forum, but one night we didn’t have anything to do, so I was drawing on his back. He just liked it! The picture everybody saw was kind of awkward, but it just lines up beautifully on his back, just enhances the part of the body I like. It’s meaningful in that it’s us making angles and shapes out of each other’s body, that kind of a thing.”
