Angelina Jolie took part in The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter Podcast, an annual podcast for long-form interviews with some of the actors, directors, writers and producers who will likely be nominated during the awards season. Jolie has made no secret of the fact that she really wants First They Killed My Father to be nominated for Best Foreign Film. She’s been openly campaigning and hustling for the movie for months already. But I think she’s found an interesting balance – even though we’ve seen a lot of her, it doesn’t feel like she’s been in our faces constantly, and she hasn’t been giving a ton of in-depth personal interviews. Anyway, you can hear the podcast here. Some highlights, from E! News:
Her wild-child behavior: “I love that the whole world knows I lived with somebody at 14, like that somehow is relevant. It sounds weirder than it was, I think. I always made very strong choices. I was always very strong-willed. I didn’t blend in very well. All of those things… I think I’m still a bit like that. And I don’t know… I see that same wild in my children in that sense of wanting to kind of break barriers. I see them finding something very strong and needing to go their own way, and it’s against what society’s norms are. And I think that’s wonderful and I think that’s the thing that eventually makes for change. But of course it needs to be directed and ya know when you’re young it can get you in a lot of trouble and it can be self-destructed and it can be just chaotic. When it finds purpose it can be fantastic. It can be something that then guides you. A sense of wild and a sense of unconventional is I think something I always embrace and try to continue to embrace.”
Dating life in her teens: “To be very honest, my mother knew that when I turned 14, I was gonna start dating and she felt, knowing me, that she wanted it to be on my terms in my room and under her roof. In a way that was safer and where I could feel in control. And it was actually a very smart choice because I didn’t date again until I got married [to Jonny Lee Miller].”
Why she started acting at first: “I think you want to figure out who you are and… There are a lot that’s not in my nature to be an actor. And I’m very happy, very lucky, and very fortunate. I realized how much it was for my mother when she passed away because I felt very differently about it as soon as she was gone. I think when I started acting it was a job. I wanted to help my mom with bills. It was a creative job. Something you get to explore different times in history, different people, different sides of yourself, learn different skills so it’s a wonderful job to have as you grow, as you learn as a person. But you’re also not those people, and you’re young and you don’t know exactly who you are and yet you also get a microphone in front of your face and you’re 17, 18, people asking for your opinions and you haven’t formed those yet and you shouldn’t form them yet, completely.”
She was close to giving up acting after splitting with Jonny: “It’s so hard to explain yourself when you’re still a mystery to yourself. Again, I think I’ve always been in this kind of struggle with being an actor, or being public. It never answered everything for me. It wasn’t suddenly I got to act and then why would I make choices? I make choices because I still wasn’t me. I still wasn’t feeling a complete and whole as a person. After Gia, I separated from Jonny and I separated amicably and we’re still very close friends but we were young and I was moving to New York. There’s life to be lived and we needed some space to do so and help each other grow. So I moved to New York on my own, didn’t know anybody and got an apartment and started to go to NYU. I thought I had expressed what I could and wanted to figure out who else I was. I was ready to kind of have a different life. I had grown up, ya know, Hollywood and New York but mainly Hollywood. I’d done what everybody said you should do, become an actor, this is what should make you happy right? People tell you if you look good enough, if you have money, if you have success, if you’re an actor, this is… these are all the things that should make a person happy, I was miserable. I was completely unhappy.”
Why she wrote ‘By the Sea’ for herself and Brad: “We had met working together and we worked together well…I wanted us to do some serious work together…I thought it would be a good way for us to communicate. In some ways it was, and in some ways we learned some things. But there was a heaviness probably during that situation that carried on and it wasn’t because of the film. It was something that we were dealing…things happen for different reasons, and things…why did I write that exact piece? Why did we feel that way when we made it? I’m not sure… My life has been… I’ve had many, many extraordinary very fortunate things happen and it’s also been many things over the years that had been challenging. So that wasn’t a particular time when I wrote it…I had my mastectomy right before I had Unbroken. Over the span of that decade, I did lose my mother. I did have my mastectomy, and I did then have an ovarian cancer scare and have that surgery as well, and other things of course that happened in life that you go through. A piece of art can be something that’s healing or something that’s difficult. I don’t know. I’m glad we did that film because we did explore something together. Whatever it was maybe it didn’t solve certain things, but we did communicate something that needed to be communicated to each other.”
I remember reading something about Angelina back in her early days, and it was basically like “she treats every interview like a therapy session.” This podcast interview reminds me of that. She doesn’t go into an interview with talking points and an agenda. She works out her sh-t in real time, and it’s often messy and her words in interviews often come back to haunt her. I think she would benefit from therapy at this moment in her life – I know the kids are in therapy now and I know they’re probably doing group therapy as a family, but Angelina would benefit from doing one-on-one sessions with a professional therapist to figure out some of this sh-t, especially the Brad sh-t. I’m fascinated with what she says about writing By the Sea and “It was something that we were dealing…things happen for different reasons, and things…why did I write that exact piece? Why did we feel that way when we made it?” TALK TO A THERAPIST. Use your words, Angie! Jesus.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid, Getty.
Gosh, but she’s so just her. She’s embracing her flaws and her upbringing and she’s saying she’s never been a perfect person. She was also a little out there and her parents let her be and look it’s life. Not everything will be perfect for everyone and this energy, this life is all I know.
I rather have an interview with someone who is honest and end up saying or sharing too much than read something stiff and fake.
Right? I couldn’t go to college because of my mom’s divorce and had to work to help pay the bills. BFD – LOTS of people had and have to do that.
That’s why i always liked her. She does say what she wants not what you wanna hear. And most of the time many can relate to her. Me included.
Her and Jonny were sooooo pretty together.
Yeah… had major crush on him and on them. But they were sooo young. Great to hear they are friends. He seems like a good guy.
Drama Queen
Then why are you even on this thread? Go someplace and sit down.
@Yup, Me, Wow that was rude!
Joannie…
And calling someone “Drama Queen” was not rude??
AMEN.
Yup I’m still a hardcore Angelina stan. Love her. The honesty and self awareness and lack of talking points only adds to my forever #1.
I love her too. It’s the fact that she doesn’t seem to give rehearsed answers that makes her so genuine.
Is Jonny married? Cuz I always saw them getting back together.
They were hanging out a lot after she left BBT when she had just adopted Maddox.
He married an actress named Michele Hicks in 2008 and they’re still together. They’ve got a son.
And for the people who put stock in Astrology, Michele and Angelina were both born on June 4th.
I know Angie will never criticize her mother, but I wonder if having her own children makes her look at her mother’s permissiveness in a different light. I just really think that no matter how difficult or wild Maddox or Pax would act, she would not allow them to have live in lovers.
I believe she probably does. Read an interview a year or do back when she even said it probably wasn’t a good idea that her mother allowed that and she wouldn’t as a parent with her kids.
Also thought she was currently in therapy it was mentioned in one of her interviews earlier this year about her heading to a session while Voight watched the kids for her.
Wow! Grandpa’s watching the kids. Sounds like there’s some healing going on there.
Always an Angie fan.
Maybe she isn’t ready to talk to someone in therapy, just yet. She doesn’t seem the type to just sit and talk, that is why she picked up and travelled or went to school on the other side of the country, or even now with her projects and charity work. That seems to be how she coped in the past and she carried it over into adulthood, just moving around. She could not control problems but she could control where she lived and what she did.
I liked this interview a lot. Yes, she is being evasive in certain instances, but I think it really is because she isn’t ready to dig deep into why. I wonder why it is easier for her to talk about her mastectomy and her mother’s death than other topics. She doesn’t come off as being coy in the interview, just mentally blocking herself from moving forward.
She did therapy. She mentioned it in an interview a while back.
I agree with Lainey gossip. Angelina’s over Brad and she’s not bitter – unlike Brad who can’t even live in their family home and has been living in Santa Barbra. it’s just a shame her kids want nothing to do with him STILL. AFTER A year -or more?- of therapy pax and Maddox will probably change their last names as soon as they can.
Best interview she’s given in years. I go back and forth with how I feel about Angelina. At times she can come off a bit pretentious and holier than thou.. other times I admire her strength and her individuality. But the best Angelina is the candid Angelina. She truly marches to the beat of her own drum. That’s a very rare quality in people.
That being said, that whole living-with-the-BF at 14 and her mom being okay with it still seems strange. Angelina looks at her mother through rose colored glasses (like we ALL do, tbh) so I’m not expecting her to criticize or even question any of her childhood in terms of her Mom.
At times she can come off a bit pretentious and holier than thou..
Ya think? 😂
Yes, this comment is just exactly on point with how I feel about Angie. I liked her candor and honesty in this piece. It was refreshing! Good read.
Different stuff she has said about her mom make me think she was a little bit emotionally manipulative. Maybe not intentionally, but I think Angelina was always extra sensitive to her mom’s feelings and emotions. For that reason, I think she avoids examining her mom in a critical light. Losing her prematurely probably just compounds that.
@Izzie
She gives a real peek into her Mom, if you’ve read some of her earlier interviews – I think she’s very honest about her mom. She essentially says they grew up being protective of their mother, that she was really a loving, passive, conscientious sweet and vulnerable person. In past interviews Angelina has described it almost like they were the parents, and would have to look out for their mom when Jon voight would saunter back in to Marcheline’s life, draw her back in and then leave again – she remained vulnerable to that and it happened a lot. For kids to see the verbal abuse and a mom being jerked around and falling apart because of a love in her life that had to be tumultuous.. So I disagree about the rose colored glasses. In the interviews I’ve read, she loves her mother deeply but she was cognizant of her short comings.
The photo of her and Brad breaks my heart. They genuinely loved each other. 🙁
She was obviously over it by then. She was no longer sugar coating their relationship. It was no longer the fake Brad is so great , life is great Katie Holmes like interviews. I knew she was checking out at that point. What he did to Maddox and pax was the last straw and they obviously still haven’t forgiven him as Brad Pitt skipped town on pax Jolie’s birthday and got back to la to hang out at a bar.☝🏼️
I like how raw this is, I relate to a lot of what she said, I myself talk like that a lot to people
You missed her New York time interview, said she was in therapy and her dad was there to look after the kids while she was in therapy session.
Yawn………………..
This interview was fabulous,So fabulous that I wished it was televised just to look in her eyes cause she was speaking from an honest place,& I have to admit whenever she spoke of brad I had forgotten they split cause she was just so normal about it(don’t know,what I expected)great interview!
This is her best interview post Pitt. The interviewer helps in this case because he is asking questions about her life through the years which gives her time to reflect. I do think she looks at her mom thru rose colored glasses because her mom was obviously a depressed person. I remember her saying this a few months back that she didn’t want her kids to worry about her like she did her mother at an early age. Her dad being an controlling ass didn’t help either.
What I find telling is her adoration of Johnny and Billy Bob. I think Brad has extinguished her respect for him as a father. She did not compliment him once nor their relationship. He very well could be the one that is holding up the divorce.
What I do admire about her is how much she has matured and how sane she is. By that I do mean her awareness and knowledge of the world and what she wants out of it. She probably won’t ever marry again. Maybe when those kids are older she might but I don’t see it soon. She is extraodinary in her own way. So articulate and kind yet aggressive and calculating. She is truly a study. I think about that Angie that we see in 1998 compared to the one we see now and it is wonderful. She has come into her own and it took a lot to get there being that she was such an emotional wreck in her youth. And what I hear is a woman who understands why she was such a wild child and emotional and it seems she is a bit ashamed of having a boyfriend living with her at 14. That wasn’t her fault that was on mom for allowing it. You can bet your azz Shi, Zee nor Viv will be able to do that.
People will always hate on her, just listen to her speak, it amazing and look at her, she is gorgeous. That is why Pitt is still upset at her for leaving him.
She wrote and did BTS wanting Pitt to see himself and she maybe see herself as odd as that sounds. Every moment has a meaning even the miscarriage. But it was wonderful. If she had only told the truth about that movie from the beginning people would have understood it. Unfortunatley she couldn’t because of him. I did from day one, but we live in a world full of idiots. Sorry Angie
My thoughts
ITA with your comments. Angie is over Brad, whatever is holding up the divorce is not coming from her.
Brad’s ego has been bruised, she left him, and as far as I know, he’s always been the one to leave any of his relationships.
As for the kids, they have a great Mother, she’ll make sure they are alright, they all seem to adore her. As for Brad Pitt, well, let’s just say the “golden boy” image has well and truly been tarnished, and he did it all himself.
Beautiful comment. I have always appreciated her honesty about her past. No re-framing, no re-writing, no sugar coating. She has always owned her wild young self. Always seems to have unapologetically been herself and carved her own path. Whether wild, ambitious, motherly, seducing, vulnerable, strong, imperfect, complex. She seems to always have had this raw honesty, that one has when one is sufficiently sure of oneself to not care about what the others will think. What a woman.
poor jolie
You only have to look at Angelina’s navigation of the Hollywood machine to see what kind of women she is. No Publicist, Agent etc since the beginning of her career. She got all three from time to time but clearly to her she didn’t need them, that’s a secure person willing to be transparent for better or worse. She won’t spin with the public to be considered right, she will speak her truth and that’s all that matters. That’s why her interviews are honest and refreshing, because she’s honest, it’s her being her own publicist – she’s speaking for herself, you can either take it or leave it but it’s her truth. So when she divorces the man she loves with all her heart, this decision came from far, she didn’t just wake up one morning to leave him. She’s mature enough to sacrifice her love for a man, for the love of her children.
She sounds like someone who made her own choices and lived mostly on her own terms, still it didn’t make her happy.
I think she acknowledges how confusing and painful the journey of life can be, if one chooses to figure out what gives us purpose and joy – versus just accepting society’s ‘success’ criteria.
Everybody tries, few achieve happy. Or at least it’s fair to say many have a definition of happy that works for them.
I actually think Angie is at her happiest since leaving Brad. She’s good. He’s a mess but that’s because she has her shit together and his isn’t. He lost himself in this which i feel bad about for their family.