It’s so sad, Angelina Week is over. Boo! Now we just have to content ourselves all of the photos from last week, plus tons of interviews which are still being released. On Friday, Angelina’s longish USA Today interview came out, and I didn’t get a chance to read it until the weekend. You can read the full thing here – she talks a lot about In the Land of Blood and Honey, of course, but she also throws in some personal details. Remember how In Touch Weekly’s sources claimed that Angelina was seriously addicted… to online shopping? Well, Angelina claims that she can’t even figure out Amazon. AMAZON! One of the easiest sites to navigate, honestly.

Angelina Jolie isn’t the wild child she once was — and she’s OK with that. Describing her younger self as “experimental, bold and a bit nutty,” the now 36-year-old actress tells USA Today she was “absolutely self-destructive” early in her career.

“I think a lot of young people in this business lose their way. You don’t know what is of value. You don’t know where you are. And you know something’s wrong, because it isn’t life as it actually is,” Jolie explains. “It’s like living in some warped reality.”

The actress — who shares six children with partner of six years Brad Pitt, 47 — finally settled down “once I started to learn about the world and I became grateful for everything that I certainly have. Since going through my first war zone, never have I woken up and not been simply grateful.”

Once she adopted son Maddox in 2002, the In the Land of Blood and Honey director realized there was no going back. “I knew once I committed to Maddox, I would never be self-destructive again,” Jolie says. “Now I have five more [kids], so I have to behave.”

Given her multiple responsibilities as a mother, lover, actress, director and U.N. ambassador, Jolie has learned how to multitask over the years. “I always Christmas shop early in case we have to travel somewhere,” she says.

“Brad and I were on Amazon.com for the first time a week ago. But we got lost. After an hour, we just shut it off,” she tells USA Today. “My brain is too scattered and the wires go in different directions. I’ll stick to catalogs.”

[From Us Weekly]

“But we got lost. After an hour, we just shut it off…” Because Angelina Jolie is now your mom who asks you “What’s up with all of this Facebooking?” Except that even my mother can navigate Amazon! So… Angelina and Brad just aren’t good at technical stuff? Angelina has claimed that before, so I guess I’ll believe her, but I thought more of Brad’s skills. Turns out he sucks at technical stuff too.

Oh, and what catalogs are they ordering from? I want to know! I used to work the phones at a catalog company, and I would be floored if Angelina was actually calling up and giving item numbers and checking on availability. What if you were the one who had to tell Angelina that you no longer had the Empress’s hoodie in pink?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I just spent WAY too much time looking at old photos of Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller. Jonny was Angelina’s first husband. I’m old enough to remember them when they were married, and how hot they were. Everyone loved Sick Boy, and Sick Boy had this crazy-sexy American actress-wife. Sigh… Jonny is still – to this day – my favorite of all of Angelina’s lovers. Sure, I’ve grown to like Brad a great deal, and I’m not saying that I want Jonny to leave his wife for Angelina or anything… but I really love Jonny and Angelina together.

Anyway, JLM and Angelina stayed friends after they divorced, and I’m pretty sure they even “dated” (slept together) for years after the divorce. If ever you wondered about Jonny – he’s a sexy beast. He maintained La Jolie’s sexual needs for YEARS. Besides their romance and friendship, Jonny and Jolie worked together in 2005, on her first documentary project, A Place In Time. They even did a World Peace Day photo call in 2005 together when Jolie was already with Brad (and pregnant with Shiloh). Somewhere along the line, Angelina fell for Brad and Jonny fell for his second wife, Michelle Hicks. I figured that Angelina and Jonny still keep in touch here and there, but apparently they still have a close enough relationship where Jonny showed up for the LA premiere of In the Land of Blood and Honey last night. The photo of Jonny with his wife – they’re leaving the after-party.

Brad Pitt showed up to support Angelina Jolie at the LA premiere of In the Land of Blood and Honey on Dec. 8, but he wasn’t the guest turning heads that night. It was Angie’s former husband Jonny Lee Miller!

The actor attended the screening at the ArcLight Cinema with his current wife, Michele Hicks.

“He came in and sat in the front part of the theater,” an eyewitness tells Life & Style. And Brad didn’t seem to mind the ex factor. In fact, he was interested only in talking about the unseasonably cold weather.

“It’s so cold out there; I had to come inside,” Brad remarked. “I don’t know how Angie is standing out there in that dress.”

Although Angie admitted she was “nervous” prior to the premiere, Brad was right by her side for her big night to steel her nerves.

“He hugged her and put his hand on her back,” an eyewitness tells Life & Style . “He was very loving and sweet.”

Angelina and Jonny married in March 1996 after meeting on the set of their film, Hackers, but called it quits after 18 months together.

“There are no regrets and no bitterness,” Jonny said at the time of their divorce. “Marriage was something that didn’t work out, and I had to make the decision sooner or later. I decided to make it sooner.”

But the two have remained friends since their split. In 2005, they even worked together on Peace One Day, a project focused on bringing peace into different communities.

[From Life & Style]

Damn, I want to know if Jonny and Angelina hugged. Whether his hands lingered on her body, and the comfortable familiarity seeped in, and suddenly Angelina felt 19 years old again, falling for her English boy with a good eyeliner game. Sigh…

Vintage Jolie & Miller:

From last night:

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News, WENN & JLM’s fansite.

Ahh, I had forgotten this was happening last night. *slowly turns in Brangeloonie Merit Badge* In the Land of Blood and Honey premiered in LA last night, and the event was much bigger than the NYC premiere earlier this week. Angelina and Brad did another red carpet together, and I like this one so, so much more than the New York premiere. This time it’s all about how hot Angelina looks in her navy Romona Keveza gown – it’s fitted! It’s not a sack! HUZZAH. It looks great on her too, and love when she teases up her hair. Brad doesn’t look as hot as he did in NY, and I don’t know what’s happening with the big glasses. Is he trying to look intellectual, or does he really need them? He still looks good, granted, but my eye goes to Jolie.

Many of the stars of the film were there, including the two leads, Zana Marjanovic & Goran Kostic. Quick word about Goran Kostic: he’s rather sexy, right? All in black on this red carpet… he looks sort of like Daniel Craig with a weird nose – very unconventionally sexy. He has presence, I’ll give him that. And Zana is gorgeous – I’m including photos of Goran and Zana below.

Angelina’s drinking buddy (I’m assuming) and girl friend Gwen Stefani showed up to support Angie. As did Angelina’s dad. Meh on him, but I think Gwen looks kind of cute in her onesie.

Meanwhile, Angelina covers the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter, joint with Jennifer Yuh Nelson, director of Kung Fu Panda 2. THR has excerpts of their conversation here. Angelina admits at one point: “I’ve scored some points at home because of Kung Fu Panda. They love Tigress, who is my alternate personality. Otherwise, they think Brad and I are just so not cool.” She also talks about what she learned from Michael Winterbottom and Clint Eastwood, and how she personally financed a large chunk of ITLOBAH. You can read more here.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Day 4 of Angelina Week. I am starting to grow tired of the media blitz. With Brangelina, it really is feast or famine. You can go months without any real news or genuine quotes from either of them, and then when either of them starts promoting something, I can’t even keep up with all of the press they do. Let’s see what we’ve got so far… Angelina will appear on the cover of the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter, which is interesting. They haven’t released the interview yet, though. Yesterday, all of the Jolie-Pitts enjoyed an outing to FAO Schwartz – you can see the photos here. All of the kids were making faces, but Angelina looked happy. Speaking of the kids, I go a chance to read Angelina’s full Marie Claire interview (which I previewed yesterday), and it’s really good. She talks about the kids a lot, and she says nice things about her “love” Brad Pitt. Oh, and the quote about her lack of girlfriends… yeah, that one will make headlines. Here are some highlights:

The Bosnian War: “I think it is still hard to understand what happened, and how it could happen 40 minutes away from Italy in the ’90s, at the time ‘Schindler’s List’ came out,” Angelina says. “You can’t make sense of something that innately doesn’t make sense: to rape and kill your neighbor with whom you have lived forever,” she added.

Jolie wrote the film as “an excuse to get out some of my frustrations [with] the international community and justice issues. I just assumed nobody would ever see or read it.”

How did she write? “Some of the very darkest sections were probably conceived in Shiloh’s art class; I was in the back corner, waiting for the kids to finish. And then somehow it slowly ended up being read by Brad, and then friends. There was a discussion of making it, and I just was terrified to hand it over to anybody. It wasn’t that I said, ‘I’m going to write something, and I want to direct it.’”

On girlfriends: “It was nice for me to play with other girls; I don’t really have girlfriends in movies, if you’ve noticed,“ she says, suggesting that the same is true off-camera as well. She quickly corrects herself: “Well, I have a few girlfriends. I just…I stay home a lot. I’m just not very social. I don’t do a lot with them, and I’m very homebound.”

Eventually quitting acting: “That doesn’t mean I’m stopping tomorrow. But I woke up one day realizing, God, I’m an actor. I don’t think I intended to be an actor. I think my mother wanted it for me. I loved telling stories, and I enjoyed the profession, but it is too late to be something else?,” the actress says.

On Brad Pitt: “He has expanded my life in ways I never imagined. We built a family. He is not just the love of my life, he is my family. I hold that very dear. I suppose what I’ve learned from Brad is to be able to have the kind of family whose happiness and well-being comes before your own. I’m very, very grateful to have such a loving family, and I wouldn’t have that without him,” Angelina explains.

Giving her kids security: “If they see Mommy and Daddy in need of some private time ’cause they’re going to kiss and whatever, the kids get all giggly and happy. Because it gives them some security,” Jolie says.

Another baby? “Nothing planned at the moment, but we just don’t know. I could end up pregnant,” Angelina says.

On Knox: “Knox is very much a dude. Very physical, tough. He loves dinosaurs and swords.”

On Vivienne: “She is so elegant and delicate. Vivi will pick flowers from the garden and put them in her hair. She likes to get her nails done and collects stuffed animals. It’s funny for me to have to buy all things pink and watch princess movies!”

On Zahara: She’s begun horseback riding – “she has found her thing.”

On Shiloh: She’s been riding the four-wheel vehicles known as quads – “It’s very funny to watch Brad try to teach Shiloh because she doesn’t want to listen. She doesn’t want Dad to sit on the back. She doesn’t want to learn about the brakes. She just wants to go!… it’s the combination of the two of us.”

On Pax: “He is extremely wild, but he has a very, very good heart. You know, like those punk rockers – when you really get to know them and they are just pussycats. But at the same time, he is going to get in some kind of trouble.”

On Maddox: “I’ll be doing something and I’ll be frustrated, and he’ll hold my hand and say, ‘Are you feeling tired? Is that why you’re upset?’ Yeah, he really does take care of me.”

[From Becoming Gorgeous and The Fashion Spot]

Maddox, the little caretaker. Do you think Maddox ever wishes he and his mom could go back to when it was just the two of them? I’m sure he’s a lovely older brother, but I do think Madd and Angelina have a special bond – the bond of the first child and a single mom. And Empress Z rides horses! She really is royalty, isn’t she? She and Queen Elizabeth II should meet. But seriously, how lovely is the quote about Brad? “He is not just the love of my life, he is my family.” GAH! My Brangelina obsession just went into overdrive.

Marie Claire photos courtesy of The Fashion Spot.

Angelina Week is going full-force! And now we even have some tabloid reports to go along with all of our new photos and interviews. Us Weekly has a bizarre (or on-target?) report about Angelina’s thinness, which… I’m kind of tired of people discussing Jolie’s thinness. She doesn’t really look any heavier or thinner since last year or the year before. She lost a lot of weight after her mom died, and then slowly come back to the figure she has now, which I think it probably close to her natural state. Would I love for Angelina to put on 20 pounds? Of course. I think she would look great with some additional weight on her bones. But to me, she doesn’t look scary-skinny like too many of the girls who bulimia their way to slender figures.

Unlike some of her peers, Angelina Jolie’s pin thin frame has nothing to do with vanity.

The U.N. goodwill ambassador, 36, who travels the globe meeting the poor, “puts herself on fasts to make statements for the children she visits,” a Jolie source tells the new issue of Us Weekly (on stands Friday).

“She says, ‘If they can’t eat, I can’t eat,’” the source adds. The busy mother of six “does different cleanses from around the world. It’s very dramatic, but that’s how she gets.”

If she does eat a burger and fries, says the source, “she feels guilty about it.”

The actress — currently promoting her directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey — has partner Brad Pitt, 47, worrying about her health, says a second insider.

“He’s worried about her and has made her see a zillion doctors, but they keep telling her she’s fine.”

[From Us Weekly]

Yeah, I don’t believe this. I think Jolie – or anyone who works in famine-ravaged areas of the world – has moments of guilt at being from a country of plenty, but she’s been doing UNHCR work for more than a decade. I just don’t buy that this is her thought process.

Meanwhile, Page Six had this story about Angelina this morning:

Angelina Jolie is asking politicians for their opinions on her movie, “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” set during the Bosnian war. At a Hearst Tower screening Tuesday night, director Jolie told Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles that she’s discussed the film with Bill Clinton, who “has [it], but has not watched it.”

She also said she was “nervous” for the reaction of former NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark, a consultant on the film. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also has a copy. As for the current administration, Jolie said, “We’d hope to send it to anyone who is willing to sit down and watch it.”

[From Page Six]

Well, considering that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s elbow is Team Aniston, I’m guessing Angie won’t be sending it to Hills. But I’m sure Bubba enjoys Angelina, although she’s too skinny for his tastes. Maybe Robert Gates wants to see it? I’m surprised Jolie didn’t send it to Colin Powell – you know that she’s tight with him, right?

Photos courtesy of WENN & Fame.

We don’t have access to the new photos of Angelina Jolie at last night’s screening for In the Land of Blood and Honey – you can see them here. Jolie wore a black velvet(y) suit that wasn’t very flattering or anything. But! We do have new photos of Jolie in a spectacular white coat, just out and about in NYC, and I’ve also included a preview of Jolie’s Marie Claire cover shoot for January. Plus, there are about twenty million new stories about Angelina too. It’s ANGELINA WEEK. Here are some highlights:

*Two nights ago, after the premiere of ITLOBAH, Brangelina, Julian Schnabel, Jason Lee and Brad’s parents all partied at the Standard Hotel’s Boom Boom Room. Page Six claims: “Angelina kept it in the family and hung with Pitt and his mom, Jane Pitt, and dad, Bill Pitt, until about 1 a.m… Jolie was overheard joking that the family should ‘take their holiday photo’ from the spot [on the hotel roof], with its sweeping views of the city.”

*Angelina told People Magazine that she adores Brad’s parents and “It means everything… I couldn’t be standing here without them.” The Pitts told People that they were “very proud” of Jolie and they admired her ability to do everything well, especially “being a really good mom.”

*BABIES. Note the cover line on Marie Claire - “I could get pregnant again.” Hmmmm? Will Jolie get knocked up again? Will she adopt again? When asked if she would consider adopting a Bosnian baby, Angelina apparently stuttered out, “There’s, I, you know, it’s not something that’s, uh, that I’ve thought of.” But the NYDN notes, “she did say she was working with SOS Children’s Villages to help support a Bosnian child through sales of the film’s soundtrack, ‘and in other ways.’”

*Angelina commented about the lawsuit against her filed by Croat journalist James Braddock, who claims that he basically owns the concept of women being raped in POW camps. When asked, Angelina said: “It’s par for the course. It happens on almost every film.” Angelina did say that “There are many books and documentaries that I did pull from. It’s a combination of many people’s stories. But that particular book I’ve never seen”.

*Angelina might work with director Luc Besson, and it might come sooner rather than later. Deadline reports:

Angelina Jolie is in talks to star in an untitled big-scale movie written and directed by Luc Besson. Besson currently has The Lady in the Oscar mix, but this film sounds like a closer cousin to early Besson efforts like The Professional, La Femme Nikita and The Fifth Element.

I’m told that there are serious talks going on for Jolie to star next spring in a dramatic thriller that is rooted in true scientific elements. Besson’s EuropaCorp developed it and will co-finance, and negotiations are already underway with a studio for domestic distribution. The Besson film would be Jolie’s next as an actress, and it would come before she teams with director Ridley Scott on a historical epic about Gertrude Bell that The Constant Gardener scribe Jeffrey Caine is currently rewriting. I’m told there’s a high likelihood that both films will land at the same studio.

The latter film is an epic adventure about a British aristocrat who helped define the current Middle East and the borders of Iraq after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. She became a seminal figure in Middle East politics during the run-up to WWI, acting in roles that ranged from archaeologist to diplomat, photographer and spy. Jolie is also moving quickly on Maleficent, the Linda Woolverton-scripted revisionist take on the Sleeping Beauty tale for Walt Disney Pictures, and she is getting closer to playing medical examiner Kay Scarpetta in the Fox 2000 drama based on the Patricia Cornwell novel series. Kario Salem has turned in a script he wrote in close collaboration with the author, based on her bestselling novel series.

[From Deadline]

Angelina working with Luc Besson? That could be interesting and weird and maybe even great. Why is it that she’ll sign on to this weird action/sci-fi, but when she was offered a bajillion dollars to make Gravity, she was all “NO!”? I still don’t understand that.

Photos courtesy of Fame & The Fashion Spot.

These are some photos of Angelina Jolie yesterday in NYC. I really like this brown dress on her, honestly. I think this would have been a much better premiere look than the black sack separates that she ended up wearing. Angelina’s style strengths are 1) Coats and 2) Business attire. She does pretty well for herself if she’s just choosing suits and business-like dresses. I’m also including some photos from the premiere too, because I just can’t get over how hot Brad looks and how much he wants the Oscar this year.

Anyway, there’s still a ton of Jolie news to cover, because that’s what’s happening this week – All Jolie, All Week. This is how she promotes films nowadays. Yesterday, we had a preview of Jolie’s ABC News interview with Christiane Amanpour, and now ABC has released the full interview:

Why she wrote the script: “I was thinking and meditating on these international themes of violence against women, lack of intervention, and how human beings are changed and warped by war, and how some people come out stronger and some people are truly broken,” Jolie told “This Week” anchor Christiane Amanpour, who covered the Bosnian conflict in the 1990′s. “There’s no safe way to tackle these subject matters, but I think the important thing is to discuss them and tackle them. This is our generation’s war. … this was, you know, the worst genocide since World War II in Europe,” she said. “It was– ‘what were we all doing?’ And ‘did we do enough’ and ‘why do we not speak about this enough’ and ‘why I don’t know enough about this?’ And so I wanted to learn. I felt a responsibility to learn.”

How it felt to be behind the camera: The actress said it felt “bizarre” to play the role of the writer and the director, but added that it was “great not to be in front of the camera.” Jolie said “writing is the hardest because it feels the most exposed. When you’re an actress, you use somebody else’s words and you can always blame the director and the director can say the editor,” she said. “But the writer is the one that kind of sits alone in the room and writes what they think is important, funny, historical, topical.”

She doesn’t think the film will be a hit: “We did it because we felt this is a war that isn’t talked about enough,” Jolie said. “I know it’s a hard film to sit through, but it’s two hours to sit through something that’s very hard, and these people lived through it for many, many years, and it was many, many times worse than any reenactment could possibly be. And I feel like it’s a gift and a duty to sit through two hours of what they lived through.”

On home-schooling the kids: “I’m being very careful with their schooling, we’re home-schooling especially when it comes to history, to make sure it’s not one country’s point of view of their country,” Jolie said. “Because it has to be very balanced and they have to learn about their country so they can form their own conclusions.”

On adoptions: “I look at them and think what their birth parents must have gone through, what their birth grandparents would have done through, and so I feel connected to it,” Jolie said. “It’s a gift when you adopt a child from another country. This whole country enters your home.”

She and Brad disagree about the death penalty: “I won’t say whose side anyone is on, but it’s the one, the thing nobody brings up at dinner because nobody wants us to go off on each other,” she said. “But it’s fun. It’s a fun debate, you know? It’s a good– you want to be able to have — to respect each other’s views and to not be exactly– we’re not identical. We have– we have strong views.”

The future: “I don’t feel needed in a position of being an actor. I feel like I’m needed at home as a mom, and I’m hoping that I’ll find other things,” Jolie said. “I’d love to be able to write or direct or work on and produce more projects about issues dealing with situations that I feel passionate about.”

[From ABC News]

Oooh, she and Brad disagree about the death penalty? I’m guessing that Brad is against the death penalty and Angelina is for it. And I would LOVE to see them fight about it.

One last thing – Patricia Cornwell just confirmed in a new interview that Angelina is still attached to play Kay Scarpetta. Cornwell said, “We’re still in the early stages of production. She’s attached to the project but all the other pieces need to fit together to make sure everyone’s happy with it – but it’s looking hopeful that everything will fall into place soon.”

Photos courtesy of Fame.

Jesus, how great does BRAD look? That was my first thought when going through these photos of Angelina’s big NYC premiere of In the Land of Blood and Honey. Brad isn’t wearing a g–damn pair of sunglasses, nor is hiding behind some gross beard. He’s relatively well-groomed (for him), he’s wearing a nice suit, his hair is sexy length, and he looks clean. He must really, really want an Oscar, right?

As for Angelina… it was her night, and she looked… okay. I was going to make a big deal about her sack dress, but she’s wearing sack separates – a Joseph top and a Ralph Lauren skirt. I mean… black sack separates, covering up her bust and her figure for the most part. I’m so tired of this look on Angelina. This time last year, she was wearing a gorgeous, white, fuzzy Versace gown to the premiere of The Tourist. I just wish Angelina’s default style was slightly better. Her jewelry is OFIRA – which surprises me. Angelina designed her own jewelry line full of 1970s-style topazes – why not wear some of those?

I’m including photos of Angelina with Brad’s parents, Bill and Jane. Bill and Jane were with Jolie all of Monday as she promoted her film in interviews, and then she posed with them on the red carpet too. Personally, I think Jane Pitt and Angelina get along really well – they seem to enjoy each other, genuinely. I’m not so sure about Bill, though. He seems grumpy, but that might have nothing to do with Angelina. Also posing with Angelina: director and artist Julian Schnabel. Do they know each other? Oh, and James Haven was there with his girlfriend.

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.

Yes, another Angelina Jolie story – I covered her Newsweek cover story here. There are new photos too, but we don‘t have them. You can see La Jolie in white here. She’s going to be on Nightline tonight, and ABC News has released a short clip of her interview with Christiane Amanpour, which I’ve included below. I actually laughed a little bit at the quotes that got released. Christiane asks Angelina if she and Brad will ever get married, and as Angelina is describing how the kids ask that too, Angelina says: “I asked them if it was just because they wanted to have a big cake.” That really speaks to her as a mom, right? She knows her kids, and it’s not like the kids even really understand “marriage” – but she knows they understand CAKE. I imagine Empress Zahara would be all, “Yes, we want cake. And gelato. And PONIES.”

She says: “I asked them if it was just because they wanted to have a big cake. They have asked, yeah, because … people get married in the movies. Shrek and Fiona are married, you know? We’ve explained to them that our commitment, when we decided to start a family, was the greatest commitment you could possibly have. Once you have six children, you’re committed.”

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again – I don’t think Angelina would mind marrying Brad. I think she kind of wants to have a real ceremony and everything, and she might even be encouraging the kids’ questions about it, and Brad is the one who doesn’t want to go down the aisle.

Screencaps from Nightline, additional pics by Pacific Coast News.

As I updated yesterday on that Angelina Jolie post, Jolie covers this week’s Newsweek. I kind of love the photos, even though I’m not quite convinced that a weekly news magazine should be doing glamour shots of a actress for the cover. That’s not a cut on Jolie – that’s a cut on Tina Brown, the editor-in-chief of Newsweek (and the Daily Beast). Anyway, The Daily Beast has released the full Newsweek article, which you can read here. Here are some highlights from the piece (which is very complimentary to Jolie and the film):

Jolie‘s approach to her humanitarian work: “When I go somewhere, I am always willing to learn about it. I get briefings, I read books, I talk to people,” she said. “But mainly I try to go somewhere to bring awareness, to come home and pick up the phone and call someone and try to get something done.”

She brings the same approach to filmmaking: She told me that when it came to the technicalities of making a film, “I wasn’t afraid to ask the DP [director of photography]. And I listened to my cast, most of whom lived through the war. I listened to their stories and tried to incorporate it into the work.”

Lack of real-time awareness of the Bosnian War: How could a woman who was only 17 when the conflict in Bosnia erupted in April 1992 have so perfectly captured the horror of a war that focused largely on indiscriminate and brutal attacks on civilians? She is honest when she says, “At the time, I had no idea of the extent of the agony.” But her work as an ambassador to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees exposed her to the plight of the Bosnian civilians and how the aftermath lingers on. The women who were raped in the infamous eastern Bosnian “rape camps” are still suffering from the emotional and traumatic fallout; it was an especially sensitive point for her.

No offense: “The people felt as though the world had forgotten them,” Jolie said. “It was a time of great pain, and I wanted to depict how courageous people were—without offending anyone.” The Bosnians desperately wanted help, from anywhere, anyone—but no one came. Even now, too few people know what happened there. Perhaps it takes the star power of someone like Jolie to remind them of this incredibly complex, bloody conflict. “It was made to remind everybody of the war—but only a small group of people will really understand,” she admitted.

The film is partially improvised: “It was half script, half improvisation,” Jolie said of some of the scenes, and she relied heavily on local staff. “The white shirt that the leading character wears throughout,” she mused at one point. “It stayed white through the rape-camp scenes—and it bothered me. We kept talking about that white shirt.” She also shows characters longing for food, for contact with the outside world, for books, cinema, poetry—all the things that existed before the war.

Writing the script: These journeys gave Jolie the experience to write the script for In the Land of Blood and Honey, which took “about a month, then it went through a lot of revisions, Brad read it, people read it,” but the actual technicalities of directing must have been daunting.

Approaching filmmaking like a UNHCR mission: There is no red carpet in Libya or Sudan. She still packs her own flashlights, notebooks, and waterproof gear. She made Blood and Honey with $13 million and a lot of humility. She approached it the way she does her job for UNHCR, like a student. “When I go on a field mission, I get multiple briefings, including from the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations],” she said. “And I took a course on international law. So I did the same thing I did with missions. I studied.” For the film, she “read a lot of books about the war. I talked to a lot of people, I watched, I listened. I just wanted to tell the real story.” She repeated what she has said several times: “I wanted to be respectful of people.” If she did not know something, “I asked.”

About her kids: During dinner, she talked with love and passion of her family, how she is educating them in their own languages and cultures, how she loves to fly around the world but how hard it is to be separated from them when she is away. She talked of how someone “who never was a babysitter” knew how to take care of Maddox as a 27-year-old single mother. “I didn’t know whether to give one bottle or 30 bottles,” she says, laughing, of her son’s infant days. “I called my mother.”

Angelina on her mom: “Her goodness had a huge impact on me,” she said. “Sometimes I go into hotels now and bellboys ask me about her. My mother used to write them notes when their children were born or christened. She was just that sort of person—everyone loved her.”

[From Newsweek/The Daily Beast]

The entire article is very good, and I recommend reading it when you have a chance. It was written by Janine di Giovanni, a reporter who covered the Bosnian War, and has been a war correspondent in several conflicts. She did a lot of research (more than Bob Simon at 60 Minutes) and she and Angelina spent hours together – it’s one of the better interviews I’ve ever read on Jolie, honestly.

Photos courtesy of Newsweek.