Angelina Jolie:
Angelina Jolie fell in love with Cambodia 17 years ago, adopting son Maddox from an orphanage two years later. Now she is back directing a movie about the country’s painful past. The BBC’s Yalda Hakim went with her and in a warm and emotional interview wi
“my son changed my life”
Angelina Jolie was travelling back to her beloved Cambodia with her six children for the world premiere of the film she had directed, First They Killed My Father. My team and I arrived at the resort she was staying at in Siem Reap in north-western Cambodia.
The place had been taken over by film crews, Netflix staff – who funded the project, and the Cambodian actors plus their families. As we set up, we were told, “Angie doesn’t want this to look very Hollywood and over the top with lighting et cetera; she wants it to be very relaxed and chilled out.”
My two cameramen began wandering around looking for a suitable location that wasn’t the typical TV interview with two chairs facing each other, lit beautifully. Finally Angie, as she is known to those close to her and how most Cambodians affectionately refer to her, stepped out to say hello. She really was as striking in reality as the movies and billboards we see her on. Barefoot and wearing a floor-length canary yellow silk-chiffon dress, her hair and make-up flawless.
“Hello, nice to meet you,” she said, giving me a firm handshake.
“Thanks so much for agreeing to this,” I responded.
“I’ll be with you in a second and obviously I’m not going to wear this for our interview,” she joked. Then off she went to film an advert to draw attention to the plight of Syrian refugees. I quickly realised how complex her life must be. “In another life, she would have been a human rights lawyer,” one of her aides told me. “She feels very strongly about her humanitarian work”. Once she’d finished her shoot, she disappeared again briefly, returning wearing what has become her signature look, a simple black slip dress, which showed off her many tattoos.
Angie is very much at home in Cambodia. Almost two decades ago, she swung through the temple ruins of Angkor Wat in Siem Riep as Lara Croft in the film Tomb Raider. It was then that she decided to adopt her son, Maddox Jolie-Pitt, now 15, from a Cambodian orphanage. When he suggested the time was right to start telling the story of his home country’s tragic history, the film got underway. Now, sitting crosslegged on the floor opposite me, in an open-sided room in the middle of the jungle, she talks about her new film, which has only Cambodian actors, is in the Khmer language and was her tribute to this nation’s suffering.
“Seventeen years ago, I came to this country and I fell in love with its people and learned its history, and in doing so learned, in my early twenties, how little I actually knew about the world. This country, for me, was my awakening. And my son changed my life. Becoming a Cambodian family changed my life.”
The film she has directed is based on the book, with the same name, about the true story of the brutality of the Communist rebels, the Khmer Rouge. The group marched into the capital Phnom Penh in April 1975.
Over the next four years, they drove its population out into the countryside, torturing, starving and executing all those perceived as class enemies and dumping them in mass graves. About two million people were killed out of a population of seven million.
“I hope this doesn’t bring up hatred; I hope this doesn’t bring up blame. I hope it brings out discussion. And I hope the people of this country are proud when they see it, because they see what they survived. And I think it sheds light on what it is to be Cambodian, and a lot of the beauty and love of the family,” Angelina says when I ask her why she wanted to tell this story.
Angelina is now known as much for her humanitarian and political work as she is for being one of the most famous actors in the world. She recently wrote an opinion piece in
The New York Times about the Trump administration’s ban on immigrants from six mainly Muslim countries. In it, she wrote about having a truly international family and how a nation’s refugee policy should be based on fact, not fear. She went on to say, “We shouldn’t be departing from our values.” “What did you mean by that,” I ask. She smiles, pauses, then in a measured tone, responds. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Some questions seem so obvious, don’t they? What are your values? I value life, equally every single individual human life. I don’t separate people by race, colour or religion. If I do, it’s because I celebrate diversity in the world. But I certainly do not judge people, or hate or fear or think anyone deserves more or less based on religion, colour of skin or where they’re from. I think that is very small-minded thinking, very horrible ignorant thinking.” Is she worried about the Trump world view? “I think that the American people are bigger than any president. I suppose I have faith in my country and in what it is founded on and the values we hold dear. I believe that many of the things that we’re hearing, that we feel, are based on a sense of spreading fear or hate or dividing people by race or judgement is un-American to me.”
Separating from Brad
When we first set out to do this interview, the agreement was to mainly discuss her project in Cambodia but that it would also be wide-ranging, including her humanitarian work, the upheaval globally with the rise of populism and, of course, her own personal situation. “She’s apprehensive about this interview,” her aides had said. I was surprised to hear this. Angelina has been in the limelight since she was a child. She is Hollywood royalty. Grew up in Beverly Hills. She fully understands what it means to be in the public eye and that in many ways her celebrity means her personal life is also very much public property. She had spent more than a decade with one of the most desirable men on the planet,
Brad Pitt.
“Surely this issue is beneath the BBC,” they said. “It is!” I exclaimed. “But I have to ask the question.” Surely they realised I couldn’t not ask about the divorce and the infamous incident on the plane which led to the separation of Brangelina. It had made global headlines and gossip magazines continue to speculate, writing piece after piece about the so-called insiders – who do not wish to be named – spilling the beans.
As much as she wants to keep the focus on the plight of the Cambodian people, it has been difficult to keep the spotlight off one of the most talked about break-ups in recent history. After all, they were a brand.
In a time when we are increasingly cynical about celebrities, their relationships and the meaning of true love, Brangelina represented something magical and truly romantic. Their ever-growing brood from different corners of the planet intrigued the public even more. Then her double mastectomy followed by the removal of her ovaries – Brad standing by her side every step of the way. It seemed perfect.
Now, in her first interview since the separation, she knew I was going to ask about it. Twenty minutes into our conversation, we’d discussed so many other issues, she seemed comfortable and I felt it was a good time to ask the question millions were curious about. What actually happened? I tried to be as thoughtful as possible, to somehow find a delicate way to link it to her film, which ultimately is about family, loss and grief.
“This is a sensitive issue. We know that an incident occurred which led to your separation. We also know you haven’t said anything about this. But would you like to say something?”
“We’ve all been through a difficult time. My focus is my children.”