Angelina Jolie was in Spain over the weekend for the San Sebastian Film Festival. She premiered her latest film, Alice Winocour’s Couture. While Angelina’s film festival appearances always make news, this time, Jolie is making news for something she said during the press conference. She was asked about the state of America at this time, especially as an American artist.
Oscar-winning actor Angelina Jolie, who is at Spain’s San Sebastián Film Festival with Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” was asked a timely question at the festival’s press conference: What do you fear as an artist and an American? The actor sighed deeply and took a few moments to answer before saying, “It is a very difficult question.”
“I love my country, but at this time, I don’t recognize my country,” said Jolie. “I’ve always lived internationally, my family is international, my friends, my life… My worldview is equal, united, and international. Anything anywhere that divides or limits personal expressions and freedoms from anyone, I think, is very dangerous. These are such serious times that we have to be careful not to say things casually. These are very, very heavy times we are living in together,” concluded the actor.
It’s important to note that Jolie’s comment on freedom of expression comes just days after Disney’s ABC took Jimmy Kimmel‘s popular late-night show off its schedule “indefinitely.” The decision came after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the U.S., Nexstar Media, said it intended to preempt airings of the program following remarks the host made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
She’s right. I don’t recognize my country either. It’s like sane, normie Americans are the proverbial lobsters in gradually boiling water. One day, we’re just looking around and wondering when everything changed. It changed in 2016, btw. When a minority of American voters got that orange demon in office. Nothing has ever been the same since then. Angelina is lucky in a sense – she has other places to go and the means to take her family out of America. Reportedly, Angelina is waiting until her twins turn 18 and finish high school (next year) to move out of America permanently. Reportedly, she’s looking to move to the UK, but she also has a home in Cambodia and she does a lot of work in Ethiopia and Namibia.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Premiere of the film ‘Couture’ at the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival at the Kursaal Featuring: Alice Winocour, Louis Garrel, Anyier Anei, Angelina Jolie, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier Where: San Sebastian, Spain When: 21 Sep 2025 Credit: Clemens Niehaus/Future Image/Cover Images **NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN GERMANY**
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- Premiere of the film ‘Couture’ at the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival at the Kursaal Featuring: Angelina Jolie Where: San Sebastian, Spain When: 21 Sep 2025 Credit: Clemens Niehaus/Future Image/Cover Images **NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN GERMANY**
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- Premiere of the film ‘Couture’ at the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival at the Kursaal Featuring: Angelina Jolie Where: San Sebastian, Spain When: 21 Sep 2025 Credit: Clemens Niehaus/Future Image/Cover Images **NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN GERMANY**
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- Premiere of the film ‘Couture’ at the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival at the Kursaal Featuring: Angelina Jolie Where: San Sebastian, Spain When: 21 Sep 2025 Credit: Clemens Niehaus/Future Image/Cover Images **NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN GERMANY**
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- Press conference for ‘Couture’ at the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival at the Kursaal Featuring: Angelina Jolie Where: San Sebastian, Spain When: 21 Sep 2025 Credit: Clemens Niehaus/Future Image/Cover Images **NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN GERMANY**
White Americans like Angelina and myself may not recognize our country, but, unfortunately, for Black Americans this situation is all too familiar. I have come to recognize that the Civil War never really ended. When Reconstruction was cut short to placate the south, the dream of the Confederacy was allowed to remain alive through Jim Crow and segregation as well as things like redlining in the north. Now, after the racists played a very long game, we are all living under the Confederacy which was supposedly defeated 160 years ago. It’s tragic and completely avoidable. People are quick to make a comparison to Nazi Germany, but the real comparison is hiding in plain sight in our own history.
This. 100 percent.
THIS.
💯💯💯
my thoughts exactly upon reading this headline. The current state of this country is all too recognizable to many, even if white women can’t see it.
We’re all living under the confederacy. No wonder that flag never disappeared.
Wow. Yes, I definitely grew with a rosy view of this country. Starting in 2016, I have learned a lot, most of it ugly. It is unforgivable the way people who don’t check the ‘cis, male, white, christian, conservative’ list are treated.
I came here to say just that. She may not recognize it but she’s benefited from it in a way Black people haven’t for a long time.
Trump & his trash administration have just put it in HD.
54% of African American respondents in a recent poll approved of the job Trump is doing. It’s only one poll, but it’s a quality one.
I have seen no such numbers from any quality poll. His numbers with African Americans in quality polling are absolutely abysmal.
Atlas Intel – in the cross tabs. Not a pleasant read. The youth also has a somehow positive view of Trump.
Without access to the raw data — and without information about how the polling was done, how many people were included, and why those conducted view the results as valid in reflecting the larger population, I just shrug when I read things like this. Polls often don’t reflect minority populations well — for a variety of reasons. In this case, 54% is such a high number that I’d like to know more about their sampling. 92% of Black women who voted, voted for Harris. It stretches credulity to think that over half of these women have been so favorably impressed by Trump that they now approve of the job that he’s doing. It also stretches credulity to think that if the Black women haven’t changed their views of Trump, almost all of the Black men have dramatically shifted to now having favorable views of Trump to get to the 54% of Black Americans who apparently approve of Trump. I wonder how the questions were worded and I really wonder about the sampling used to reach this conclusion — since small or skewed samples can yield results that don’t reflect the views of the larger population.
FWIW — the 54% doesn’t accurately reflect the overwhelmingly negative opinions that I’ve heard and read over these last several months.
Er, no.
I don’t believe any pollster is ever going to present their raw data or the minutia of methodology because they’re proprietary. Otherwise, the Atlas poll has a monster of info on the sample used, the exact wording of the questions, and so on.
The figure is so high it made me incredulous.
BUT
I’m intent to be open to info and not to lull myself into a sense of where I personally believe the electorate is at – because I’ve done it before and I got burned. So I’m trying to shed some fixed ideas of my own.
Thanks @Meg, I’ll take a look and see what I can find. My questions are pretty broad — things like age ranges in the sample, for example. I actually don’t have a preconceived expectation of what the data might look like beyond the issue that I mentioned with Black women voters, but it would be interesting to know if most of the people polled voted in the last election — or if multiple cohorts are being subsumed under “African American “ voters when looking at the impact of age or geographic location might show some interesting things. It’s on me to look deeper — since the types of information that I’m interested in might well be easily available.
When I hear American leaders say, “this is not us, this is not America” I think that it a a certain part of America. Better angels can overcome, and I pray they can again.
Well said, @Brassy Rebel. I very much recognize my country. We’ve been here before — in living memory.
🎯 It’s the NeoConfederacy.
I’m a white “boomer” age female and I’ve always seen the racism in the US as never having altered much, if at all, from pre-Civil War era. The southern USA has millions of seething whites who are only too thrilled to now have “permission” to be openly racist under a racist regime. It is terrifying to me and I wish I had the resources and health to move away for good. I don’t see how we ever get back to even the pretense of equality we had before…when we acted like votes mattered etc…those days are over. Trump and his evil gang stamped out so much in such a tiny amount of time.
We did it, before; we can do it, again.
Same. She’s absolutely right.
I say it all the time but it’s a sad how much this country has regressed
I agree with all of this. It is sad and shocks me that some of our people had and have such hateful feelings toward immigrants and other racial groups who work hard and have come here for all the right reasons—exactly as our grandparents and great grandparents did!
Thank you for speaking so eloquently, Angelina.
It’s still the power of the people(we see how mostly everyone supported Jimmy), make your voices heard. Vote next years midterms and vote blue straight line.
Btw.. My family and I spent 6 months in Spain last year(due to my husband’s project and luckily my employer let me remotely work from there too temporarily). And although we enjoy our time, There’s also issues in that country and in many countries that aren’t amplified in the world media(like it does with the U.S.). Let me tell you, Racism and discrimination isn’t just a U.S. thing it’s everywhere. The colonialism mindset is everywhere, not just here in the U.S. No where is perfect.
I can understand Angelina’s view and she’s right about the U.S.
And it’s disappointing now, esp how far we went during the Obama years where we thought we progressed. But she’s also a worldwide celebrity where she’ll be treated and accepted well anywhere she goes.
Waiting for her dad to give us his nasty reaction sigh