More from the HFPA. I will compile all her actual quotes after a few more.
Manila Bulletin
By: Janet Nepales Published
Los Angeles – Looking radiant in a white Bottega Veneta dress, Angelina Jolie talked to us for the first time after her separation from Brad Pitt. She talked to us about her kids, her thoughts on forgiveness, reconciliation, how she sees herself 10 years from now, her new movie and the Angelina Jolie of today.
“I don’t enjoy it. It’s not something I wanted,” Angelina told us when asked about being single these days. “No. Sorry, there’s just nothing nice about it. It’s just hard.”
Angelina, who recently directed the biographical historical thriller film, “First They Killed My Father,” which is based on her Cambodian friend, author and human activist Loung Ung’s memoir of the same name, co-wrote the film with Loung. Angelina also produced the film along with Rithy Panh, while Angelina’s son Maddox, 16, is also the executive producer and her other son Pax, 14, is involved in taking production still photos.
“As a mother, I am proud of my children and what they do,” she told us. “It is a good experience for them to be working on the film.”
Since the movie revealed the bonding of Loung with her siblings when they were separated from their parents under the rule of the deadly Khmer Rouge, we asked Angelina how her own six children have been supporting each other everyday.
“They have been amazing,” she proudly said. “It’s been so moving to see how much they have helped each other, stood together, the big brothers helping the little kids and all of them helping me. They are your kids and you speak of your own kids, but they have really come into their own during this time. They are finding themselves and their voices. They are just like, in the film I supposed, I know that they will have each other for life. It gives me great peace to know the day I pass away that they will have each other and they will take care of each other.”
She talked about the greatest challenges of being a parent these days and how she handles these challenges. “I am not very good at just letting things happen,” she admitted. “I am somebody who will try to jump in. I can’t help myself. As I said before, it is interesting and we focus so much on many things but making sure our children have a sense of joy is not a small thing, because we want to make sure that they have a sense of purpose of course. But their purpose gives them a sense of that they are looking forward in this life and that they feel engaged in this life and that they wake up with a certain sense of drive. But also that they laugh, live and appreciate. So challenges are when there are a lot of heavy things going on or just daily life or teenagers. I have many teenagers now and there are all the complications that come with it. I am just hoping that nobody will ever be as difficult as I was. So far they are not.”
Asked why she felt she had this creative and artistic need to do films that examine the world’s atrocities and in man, Angelina explained, “I was exposed to many of these countries and what they have been through. I wanted to understand more, and go deeper. I want to understand more. This war in particular I had learned quite a bit about, but I felt that the country doesn’t speak about this in the way that I felt. I didn’t really feel there had been in a way something that spoke to the young people of the country in the way that I wanted this to. I knew that it wasn’t being taught in schools in this way and it just started to very small. There seemed to be something that was really lacking in the discussion and my son being Cambodian, I really wanted Maddox to learn about this history, so I felt that this was a journey that we would take. But this particular film, as I have explored different sides of war and first kind of how war affects people, how they are separated, how they become and be torn in separate parts of the conflict
“There’s something about this, seeing it through the eyes of the most vulnerable, the little girl, and trying to be inside that, feel that, see inside what propaganda does, what this kind of a life does, how she could come out, and how does that happen? What do we not know about life? We wake up and we really don’t understand. They have been through the worst and they are so evolved. So I wanted to walk her steps and learn and hope my kids would learn.”
So where does she see herself 10 years from now and how would she have answered that question 10 years ago, we asked.
“Ten years ago I would have not absolutely said where I am today, because I would have thought very differently about my family life and my marriage. I would have thought very differently about my career. I would have never thought that I was going to be a director. I would have bet on just all the kids, all the travel and continuing that work. In 10 years, I don’t know. You get to that age and you just want to be healthy. So I hope I am able to still be creative and Mad will be 26. He just got to be 16 and I couldn’t stop crying as I was reading him his card. He couldn’t stop laughing at me. So I don’t know. I guess in ten years, they are all out of the house. So I have no idea what I will be doing. Chasing them around I suppose. Hopefully no grandkids yet.”
And how is she in terms of everything that has been going on in her own life?
“I am okay,” she revealed. “It is hard. This is the first time I have actually been doing this for a really long time. It’s not easy. I am a little shy at this time, because I am not as strong I think inside as I have been in the past.”
Her attitude personally to forgiveness?
“Well it’s a very good question I think because, it gets political this answer, I believe in justice and I believe that without any form of justice, it’s very hard to ask for complete forgiveness. I speak to the kids often and I say I don’t want you to hold ill will towards anybody in your heart, wish for anything bad for anybody or have hate towards anybody. But the idea that there is a right and a wrong, there is truth to that. There is a right and a wrong. There is justice and there is criminal behavior. There is cruelty and there are things that must be stood up against. So in order to be able to get to a place of peace and forgiveness, you have to address the crime and you have to make sure that the crime does not repeat itself.”
So is there some great reconciliation for her personally, we asked.
“I can reconcile if I feel that there has been some form of justice done and some lesson learned,” she disclosed. “But I believe that we must do that, or else we are just staying in the cycle. But in my heart, I think it’s very important not to ever hold hate, and it just destroys you. And Louis taught me that.”
There are two Angelina Jolies – the one of 20 years ago and the one today. Can she share with us her feelings about the new Angelina?
“Well, there’s probably 12 of us,” she said. “But now I need to rediscover a little bit of some of the feeling of the old me actually. We lose our way a bit and we get quite overwhelmed. I have had a lot happen in my life from certain people passing to health issues to raising the children and a lot of things. It’s been a very good time to absorb a lot, develop a lot and grow. But maybe it’s also my kids growing up where I am starting to realize my own sense of play has been put on hold a little bit, my own sense of joy. Maybe with them hitting their teens is going to bring out a little more fun in mom. So maybe I am going back. It may be time.”
Seventeen years ago, Angelina Jolie and Cambodian author Loung Ung were sitting in hammocks, waiting out a torrential monsoon in a remote part of Cambodia, when Jolie asked a question that would change her life.Thrilled to catch up with #AngelinaJolie to talk about amazing Cambodian #Netflix film #FirstTheyKilledMyFather https://t.co/rpZXF9bOs1 pic.twitter.com/44Da7RRctO— Jenny Cooney (@JennyCooney) September 3, 2017
"I asked Loung how she would feel – as a Cambodian orphan herself – if I adopted a Cambodian orphan," she says, with emotion in her voice. "I'll always be grateful she was really supportive, because if she had said the opposite, my life would have been very different and I might never have found Maddox."
The two women – now close friends – met at that time because Jolie had been to Cambodia to film her first movie blockbuster, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and in her efforts to get to know the country better had picked up a copy of Loung's book First They Killed My Father. It documents her story as a five-year-old girl struggling to survive the genocide of the Khmer Rouge regime responsible for the deaths of an estimated 2 million people.
Loung also vividly remembers that night in their hammocks, when Jolie asked for her blessing. "All I saw was that her heart was big and her desire to be a mother was real and her wanting to mother a child from Cambodia was authentic," Loung says.
"I actually wanted her to adopt me as an orphan but, being that I'm older than her, I couldn't really suggest that."
Loung's book has now been adapted into a film, directed by Jolie. The made-for-Netflix movie – released on September 15 – is shot in the native Khmer language and begins in 1975, when the five-year-old Loung Ung and her six siblings are living a privileged life in Phnom Penh as the children of a high-ranking government official. Their world is turned upside down when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime storms into the city and forces everyone to evacuate, killing those who resist and sending the rest to work camps during what became a four-year nightmare.
"Loung has known Mad his whole life and Mad has known of Loung's story his whole life and it was Maddox who finally said, 'It's time, let's go make the movie,' " Jolie says. She acknowledges her son's contribution in the end credits as an executive producer. "I think we were both waiting for him to be ready because I'd told him when it was time he would have to really be there, and I was proud of him for how he immersed himself in the experience.
"He's my son but he belongs very much also to Cambodia, so it was nice to see him at home."
On this day, Jolie is in a hotel suite in Beverly Hills, California, to discuss the film and is doing her best to look calm and confident. The bright red lipstick on the Oscar winner's famously bee-stung lips draws attention away from her eyes, which look as if they could fill with tears at any moment. She is eager to talk about her passion project but knows there is an elephant in the room – her split with Brad Pitt. Their 12-year relationship (and two-year marriage) ended reportedly due to Pitt's alcohol issues and a well-documented blow-up with Maddox on the tarmac during an airport stopover. Jolie filed for divorce in September last year – requesting full custody of their six children, aged nine to 16. Pitt recently told GQ magazine he had been sober for six months.
How is she? "I'm OK. It's hard," she says softly. "I am a little shy at this time, because I am not as strong I think inside as I have been in the past."
Jolie, 42, is uncharacteristically cautious when asked how she has handled the past year. "It's been difficult and I haven't worked, other than teaching and focusing on my work in Nairobi [involving a June visit to mark World Refugee Day]. I've actually spent most of my days just taking care of the children," she says, her voice cracking. "I will eventually balance more and do more work but because of family issues it's been extremely tough.
"It's not easy doing press right now ... I can't pretend this isn't a tough time in my life, but I'm trying to get through it by just moving forward and knowing it's part of being human. Sometimes I can forget that and we can all get pretty hard on each other ... Maybe sometimes it appears I am pulling it all together, but really in fact I am just trying to get through my days."
Jolie also tears up when she talks about her awakening as a humanitarian after her first visit to Cambodia and what that country means to her.
"Going there the first time helped me realise how little I knew about the world and opened my eyes to camps and refugees and the landmine issue," she says. "But I also became a mother through Cambodia, when I found Maddox, and I've been a citizen for over a decade and we have our home in the north, near the Thai border, so making this film brought everything I love into one place."
Jolie cast a wide net to find a young Cambodian girl to portray Loung Ung. She found the expressive Sareum Srey Moch and says she exceeded expectations.
"What I've learned from my own kids is that you really can't tell them what to do," she laughs. "She showed up every day and surprised me." As for claims that the film's casting team used exploitative methods during auditions involving giving and taking away money in a "game", Jolie has called the allegations "false and upsetting".
She says of Sareum: "I asked her if she wanted to be an actress and she said, 'no, I want to be a director.' She's obviously learnt very quickly!"
Loung later joins Jolie in a joint interview and they appear close, giggling and whispering as if we are talking about someone else who suffered the trauma that is depicted in the film. Loung's parents, two sisters and 20 other relatives (the title of the film is the plot spoiler) were killed during the Khmer Rouge reign. In 1980, Loung and her older brother Meng escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp before moving to the US to live with a host family in Vermont. Loung returns to Cambodia frequently for her non-profit work and has been reunited with her surviving siblings, pictured with her in a moving cameo in the film's final scene.
"I don't see it as a story about horror or war but a story about love," Loung says. "I think it's a story about resilience; about a child and a family and a country going through a genocide but it also shows how love, as broken as it was, inspired us all to survive."
Jolie is less guarded when asked about her ongoing struggle with her health, after opting to have a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 – sending her into early menopause – and more recently being treated for hypertension and Bell's palsy.
"Yes, my body has sometimes taken a hit with all of the things that I had to do," she says matter-of-factly. "And then, emotionally, it was a difficult year on top of all that. But I don't want my children to feel my stress; they need to feel my joy and have joy in just living every day. I see them together and it gives me great peace to know that the day I pass away, they will have each other and take care of each other for life."
Her tone turns lighter when asked where she'd like to be in 10 years. "I guess all my kids will be off on their own and I'll be visiting them and chasing them around, but I hope I'm not a grandmother yet!"
She shudders at what she put her parents through as a wild teenager. "Now I have them, I know there are many complications that come with it. But I am just hoping that nobody will ever be as difficult as I was – and so far they are not."
Having watched this former wild child of Hollywood evolve into a devoted mother and humanitarian, you have to wonder what the next chapter of her life will look like.
"Maybe watching my kids growing up makes me start to realise my own sense of play and joy has been put on hold a little bit," Jolie says. "Maybe them hitting their teens is going to bring out a little more fun in mum. Maybe I'm going back; maybe it's time."
First They Killed My Father is released on September 15 on Netflix.
