MISTRESS OF EVIL
Angelina Jolie revels in latest role
Angelina Jolie doesn’t like goodbyes. Especially when, only a few months ago, she was sending her eldest son off to college.
Maddox, the little boy she used to call Madness, is 18 now, and he was headed for Yonsei University in Incheon, South Korea, a long way from the family’s California home.
“To be very honest, I spent the days with him thinking I was prepping him to go,” Jolie said, brushing glossy chestnut hair out of her almond-shaped eyes. “Did he have the right shoes? New glasses? Things? You’re working so hard as a mother to prepare him, and then all of a sudden you’re at the airport.”
Months later the actress — wearing a flowing white sundress on a warm fall morning at a Beverly Hills hotel — was clearly still affected by the moment.
“It was time to say goodbye,” she continued, “and Maddox sat back down with me for a bit longer. I thought, ‘Oh, he still wants to be with me. That’s so sweet’. But then I realised what was really happening. My son looked at me and said, ‘Mom, are you OK?.’
“I realised the entire week had been just for me,” Jolie said. “When Maddox gave me a really big hug at the airport, I knew he was OK. I also knew he was the kind of man who knew what I needed — and he gave it to me in such a loving way.”
And now?
“I’m OK,” she said. “But, on that day, I did cry.” The past few years have brought many changes to the life of the 44-year-old actress, filmmaker and humanitarian. Her marriage to Brad Pitt ended, which led to tabloid headlines and a custody struggle over their minor children.
Small wonder that Jolie found it satisfying to bury herself in work — notably Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil, opening in Thailand on Thursday (Oct 17). She reprises her role as the vengeful sorceress in Maleficent (2014), the biggest hit of her decades-long career.
“She’s wild, full on and a bit too much,” Jolie said with a grin. “I’ve been through different things in my life. I was so happy to feel strong again and have some fun with this role. I adore her. She’s bad-ass. I’m very proud I’m associated with her.”
In the original film Maleficent curses an infant, Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning), only to discover that the child is the only person who can restore peace to her land of magic. The two form a tenuous mother-daughter relationship that’s tested in the sequel when the princess, now grown, wants to marry a prince (Harris Dickinson) from a neighbouring realm.
It’s not that easy, of course. The prince’s evil mother, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), has vowed to wipe out the magical creatures in the nearby forest and achieve total human domination. Maleficent may be the only one who can stop her.
Jolie embraced the sequel, which further explores families that might not look, at first glance, as if they belong together.
“People tell us that you can’t be family because you’re not the same,” said the actress, whose six kids include three biological kids and three adoptees from Cambodia. “Maybe we don’t look the same, maybe we’re not the same. You’re asked, ‘How can you be the mother of this group?.’ This pulls cords in me when I think of my own family. Maleficent even asks herself, ‘Am I good enough to be a mother?.’
“I think diversity in families makes us stronger,” Jolie said. “It helps us to find a better way forward. The idea is, we must be better. We’ve come together for a reason. We’re united. We’re saying, ‘This is the world we choose to live in.’
“In the movie I love a daughter who is very different from me, but it’s beautiful because the message is that your family is
based on a heart connection. I see her exactly how she is, and I don’t want her to be any different. She sees me exactly how I am.”
Mistress Of Evil wasn’t an easy movie to make. Maleficent often morphs into a gigantic bird, which meant costumes filled with claws, spikes and feathers.
“I did actually poke myself, and often, when the bones of the bird costume would flip up,” Jolie said. “It was hard, but you’re so supported in one of these roles. There are so many magical people working with the costumes and on the visual effects.”
Particularly challenging were the days she had to fly.
“I needed to look strong on the ground and then effortlessly float up in the air, which was done on rigs,” Jolie explained. “I had to be careful not to lock horns with the other creatures. You’re 20 feet up, doing a ballet dance in the air and trying not to get tangled with any other actor. But it was all good fun.”
Her voice for Maleficent — a character originally created by the little-known Eleanor Audley in the Disney animated film
Sleeping Beauty (1959) — has been compared to that of Bette Davis, an iconic star of golden-age Hollywood.
“I do look up to legendary movie stars,” Jolie said. “Clearly Maleficent was originally drawn with those women as an inspiration, so I’m grateful for any comparison, hint or scratch of actresses like Bette.”
From the start, many said that Jolie was the only choice to play Maleficent.
“The strange thing, as an actor, is that you’re always trying to figure out who you are,” she said. “Then I got this call a few years ago where someone said, ‘You are the only person who could play Maleficent. It’s just so obvious.’
“You think, ‘I’m really not sure how I’m supposed to take that one, yet I love her.’ I decided to fully embrace it.”
Born in Los Angeles, Jolie is the daughter of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand. Her parents split when she was young, and she was raised mostly by her mother. At 11 Jolie was studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and at 16 she was modelling and appearing in music videos.
Her performance as doomed model Gia Carangi in the television movie Gia (1998) caught Hollywood’s eye, and led to Girl,
Interrupted (1999), for which she won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. She went on to such films as Pushing Tin (1999), The
Bone Collector (1999) and Gone In 60 Seconds (2000), and played the adventurous title character in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life (2003).
Then Jolie made the hit action film Mr. &
Mrs. Smith (2005), in which she co-starred with Brad Pitt. The two fell in love — Jolie previously had been married to Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, and Pitt to Jennifer Aniston — and got married. Ever since, her life has been on fast forward.
Some of it has been good — she was Oscar-nominated as Best Actress for her performance in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling (2008), earned plaudits for her work on behalf of Cambodian refugees, made her directorial debut with In The Land Of
Blood And Honey (2011) and went on to helm the critically acclaimed Unbroken (2014) — but there was a great deal of the bad: Tabloid scandal-mongering, a double mastectomy, box-office flops and, finally, the messy break-up with Pitt.
Jolie is also known for her charitable efforts, which earned her the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2014 Oscars. Her causes include conservation, education and the rights of women and children, and she has worked as a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Now she’s trying to focus on her career. Next up is a starring role as Thena in
The Eternals, a Marvel Cinematic Universe epic about a race of immortal beings secretly living among us and shaping human history.
“The nice thing about the MCU is that it’s such a big world,” Jolie said. “This is understanding you’re a part of this great universe and greater project. You’re also so much a part of a team, which is a lovely feeling. You just have to find your place and service the fans.
“You have to get it right, because it’s a high bar they’ve set.”
That she’s been drawn to Lara Croft, Maleficent and now the world of Marvel Comics shouldn’t be a surprise. Jolie has always had a bold, outspoken, larger-thanlife side and, as she enters middle age, she’s making no apologies for it.
“Be true to yourself,” she said. “I tell my children, ‘No matter how people see you or say how you should be, don’t listen to them or you will suffocate.’ I tell them, ‘Be your true nature, whatever that might be. You will find a home for it. You will find acceptance.’
“I tell them, ‘We’re not just here to exist. You have to know what you stand for, what you’d fight for, what you would even die for.’ I believe that, if you live that way, then whatever pain and sacrifice comes along, you will embrace it. And you’ll be filled with purpose.”