Toronto Awards Takeaways: Feinberg on an Off-Year for the Fest https://t.co/N3YF0FbzPv

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 15, 2024

THR's executive editor of awards discusses the dearth of world premieres of real awards contenders, the comatose sales market and the bizarre audience award pick.

By Scott Feinberg

Over the years since this policy was adopted, we have not been able to get a real sense of its impact, partly because in several of those years the pandemic and the strikes were already making TIFF feel very different. But this year, with neither the pandemic nor the strikes an issue, we found out. As one top awards strategist put it to me, “Opening weekend just felt dead.” Indeed, there were chunks of empty seats throughout the major venues; there was little buzz on the streets and in the restaurants; and there were very few world premieres of films with any real awards potential.

Amazon/MGM’s Unstoppable and The Fire Inside proved to be solid entertainments, but with very limited awards paths. A24’s We Live in Time is an effective tearjerker, but it’s more The Fault in Our Stars than A Star Is Born. Searchlight’s Nightbitch stars the great Amy Adams, and some liked it more than others, but it’s not going anywhere with the Academy. And I could go on. The only opening weekend world premiere of an awards hopeful that seemed to matter at all was the one for The Wild Robot, an animated feature which was produced by DreamWorks Animation (in its 30th year on the scene) and will be distributed by Universal.

TIFF certainly caught some bad breaks this year. For one thing, it’s not a particularly deep awards season to begin with, which meant that the fest had limited options. Additionally, while a few big names showed up — among them, Elton John (on behalf of the Disney+ documentary feature Elton John: Never Too Late), Robbie Williams (Paramount’s Better Man), plus a bunch of Netflix talent including Angelina Jolie (Maria), Denzel Washington (The Piano Lesson), Will Ferrell (Will & Harper) and Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez) — many others did not. Nicole Kidman (A24’s Babygirl) had to bow out after her mother passed away. None of the stars of Focus’ Conclave — Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow — were able to get out of work obligations in Europe. Emilia Pérez helmer Jacques Audiard suffered a back injury that prevented him from traveling. And the list goes on.

The rest of the TIFF sales market was largely comatose. The only deals of real note were A24’s acquisition of the U.S. distribution rights for The Brutalist, a nearly four-hour VistaVision film with an intermission, after it generated a strong response at Venice; and Hulu’s surprising eight-figure purchase of the opening night film Nutcrackers, which stars Ben Stiller, but about which there was decidedly muted enthusiasm.

A lot of other films, many with big-name talent, came to the fest hoping to find a buyer, but left without one, including The Last Showgirl (Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis), On Swift Horses (Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar-Jones), The Friend (Naomi Watts and Bill Murray) and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (the feature directorial debut of Embeth Davidtz).

Which brings us to the TIFF audience award, which has long been a harbinger of Oscar success — each of its last 13 winners went on to at least a best picture Oscar nomination, and three of them, 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, 2018’s Green Book and 2020’s Nomadland, took home that prize — but which this year, we learned this morning, went to Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck.

The Life of Chuck may be a lovely film, but it had virtually no profile coming in to the fest, generated virtually no discussion at the fest, and still does not even have a U.S. distributor. Passed over for it were Emilia Pérez (which finished second), Anora (which finished third) and The Wild Robot (which the fest apparently tried to boost a little by giving it twelve screenings).

In other words, if TIFF’s relevance to this awards season was in doubt prior to the announcement of the audience award, the audience award announcement certainly did not help its standing.

With the fall festivals wrapping up, do we have an Oscar front-runner? https://t.co/nCu7ZVFnB4

— LAT Entertainment (@latimesent) September 12, 2024

Which brings us to 2024, where, at the moment, the two movies that have most thrilled audiences at Cannes and the fall film festivals are Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” a musical soap opera about a Mexican cartel boss looking to transition to being a woman, and Sean Baker’s “Anora,” the madcap, generous story of a Brooklyn sex worker who impulsively marries the young son of a Russian oligarch. Both films premiered earlier this year at Cannes, where “Anora” won the festival’s highest prize, the Palme d’Or.

“This isn’t exactly a mainstream movie,” Baker said at Cannes, both stating the obvious and expressing the tone of the upcoming awards season in a mere half-dozen words.

From the size of the crowds standing outside theaters showing “Anora” at Telluride, you might have suspected Baker was underselling his movie a bit. Hundreds were turned away, a notable (and happy) contrast to the divisive reception that Baker’s last movie, “Red Rocket,” received at the festival two years ago.

Have audiences become more open and adventurous? We’re about to find out as we enter an Oscar season that seems as unsettled as any in recent memory, dominated by international auteurs, indie offerings and, fingers crossed (because we could really use a maximalist miracle), Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II.”

Even the one blockbuster that’s already locked for a best picture nomination, Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two,” stands as daring cinema, its spectacle aiming for both the gut and the intellect.

Villeneuve’s first “Dune” movie won six Oscars two years ago. The sequel might equal that count. But being the second film of a planned trilogy (even if Villeneuve doesn’t like to define the series that way), a best picture win is unlikely, an outcome any middle child already knows in their secret heart.

While “Anora” and “Emilia Pérez” established themselves at Cannes, the fall festivals offered a murkier picture of the season. “The Room Next Door,” Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film, won the Golden Lion for best film at Venice. The drama follows a terminally ill journalist (Tilda Swinton) who asks a close friend (Julianne Moore) to stay with her as she contemplates taking her own life. Festival buzz at Venice and Toronto, aside from the Golden Lion, felt respectful but not quite rapturous.

The Telluride premieres of “Conclave” and “Nickel Boys” offered contrasting portraits of the ways audiences receive movies at festivals. The movies played back-to-back on Telluride’s opening night, with Edward Berger’s “Conclave,” a lively and occasionally clever melodrama about a bunch of petty cardinals choosing the next pope, wowing the crowd with a series of pulpy plot twists. Ralph Fiennes does most of the heavy lifting, playing a dutiful and doubting man overseeing the vote. “Conclave” feels like a movie made for the Oscars: absurd, stylish and not nearly as shrewd as it thinks it is. Expect it to clean up.

“Nickel Boys,” RaMell Ross’ disorienting adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s celebrated novel, followed “Conclave” and knocked its audience sideways. Shot from the point of view of its characters, two Black boys navigating the horrors of a Florida reform school, “Nickel Boys” invites moviegoers to immerse themselves and bear witness. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, wonderful as a loving grandmother, said festivalgoers approached her after the screening, calling the movie “tough.” That’s fine with her.

“I think that we have been conditioned as moviegoers, particularly in this country, to have an expectation of how we should feel watching a film,” Ellis-Taylor told me at Telluride. “I want to be an advocate for cinema that is not palliative.”

To that end, the movie of the season might be “The Brutalist,” Brady Corbet’s 3½-hour epic that inspired a fierce bidding war after its Venice premiere, with chic indie studio A24 winning the rights. The story of a Hungarian Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) who survives World War II and relocates to America, the film is sprawling, nervy and demanding. It has an overture and an intermission and has been compared to “The Godfather” in the way it examines the American dream. The hype will be overwhelming when it arrives in theaters later this year.

By contrast, a below-the-radar standout is Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s astonishing “All We Imagine as Light,” winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes, and also a selection at Telluride, Toronto and the upcoming New York Film Festival. The film follows the lives of two roommates who work together as nurses at a hospital in Mumbai, capturing their dreams and disappointments in rich, evocative detail.

Some films failed to make it out of the festivals unscathed, with critics roasting “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the sequel to Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” with Joaquin Phoenix reprising his Oscar-winning turn opposite Lady Gaga. The good news: Gaga now will have more time to tour behind her new record rather than campaigning for an Oscar.

“Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as legendary opera singer Maria Callas, is Pablo Larraín’s latest look at a famous woman imprisoned by image and celebrity, following “Jackie” (about Jacqueline Kennedy) and “Spencer” (about Princess Diana). It’s a feast for the eyes and ears but also a bit lifeless. Reviews were mixed, but never underestimate how awards voters will swoon for a biopic.

Jolie will have plenty of competition in the lead actress category, including Mikey Madison (“Anora”) and Karla Sofía Gascón (“Emilia Pérez”), along with Saoirse Ronan, who received a tribute at Telluride primarily pegged to her work playing a woman trying to maintain her sobriety in “The Outrun,” a Sundance premiere.

There’s also a ferociously raw turn from Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in “Babygirl,” a drama about desire that was the talk of Venice and Toronto, and more greatness from Amy Adams, somehow not yet an Oscar winner, in the Toronto-premiering “Nightbitch,” a movie about the demands and joys of motherhood that also prompted a great deal of conversation, much of it decidedly dumb. Demi Moore was in Toronto too for the North American premiere of Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” a horror movie about women’s value in showbiz that contains the best work she has ever done.

Which brings us to movies not yet seen. There’s James Mangold’s look at Bob Dylan going electric, “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet. Jon M. Chu has staged a lavish adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked.” And Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen pays tribute to Londoners living through World War II in “Blitz,” which will premiere in a few weeks at the London Film Festival and will close the New York Film Festival, making it one of the last contenders to launch.

Except, of course, for “Gladiator II,” this year’s only appropriate answer to the question: “What’s your Roman Empire?” Unless it’s Ridley Scott, cranking out epic movies year after year, well into his 80s. He’s an acceptable response as well.

Telluride: Angelina Jolie and Pablo Larraín on Reactions to 'Maria,' Singing Opera and Celebrity https://t.co/xlT9UoCd6u

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 2, 2024

On Sunday, less than 24 hours after the Telluride Film Festival’s North American premiere of Maria, a drama about the rollercoaster life of the legendary opera singer Maria Callas, The Hollywood Reporter sat down with its star, Angelina Jolie, and director, Pablo Larraín, for a wide-ranging conversation.

Jolie said of playing Callas, in a performance for which she is generating white-hot best actress Oscar buzz, “It certainly was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Why? On the most literal level, the Girl, Interrupted Oscar winner had to learn how to sing opera and then do so in front of others live and on camera (her voice was ultimately blended with Callas’s in the final product). But beyond that, she clearly feels a personal bond with “La Divina,” who died in 1977, the age of 53, when Jolie was just two.

Both, Jolie acknowledged, could be described as world-famous performers — “icons,” as Larraín puts it — to whom the public and critics weren’t always kind, and whose relationships were often dissected by strangers, which took a major toll on them. But, she emphasized, “Where we really connect is in our dedication to our work, our vulnerability, our loneliness and our love of communicating with an audience.” (Jolie also spoke with Rebecca Keegan for this week’s THR cover story.)

A transcript of the converation, lightly edited for clarity and brevity, appears below.

What have you made of your Telluride experience so far?

JOLIE It’s just such a wonder. There’s such a warmth among the people — even among the press!

We try.

JOLIE It’s such a relaxed environment for everybody to be in, and there’s so much time to see each other’s work and support each other’s projects. It’s as it should be: all about the work and less about presentation.

You guys came here directly from your world premiere in Venice…

LARRAÍN Yeah. It’s such a different rhythm over there. It’s so intense. It’s super beautiful. It’s organized chaos. And then here, it’s so relaxed and people are really into the movies — everyone’s seeing two or three films a day, at least. It’s the only film festival where you can see movies when you have a movie in the festival. I’ve seen three films. It’s unusual.

JOLIE We saw Anora this morning.

And what have you made of the reactions here to your film?

LARRAÍN I like it, when people take the film in the way that we felt it and did it — that it’s not entirely rational, it’s more in an emotional space, which is what music is. Opera is something that is mostly an emotional experience. And I think Maria Callas did that, and took the emotional experience to a different level in the operatic world. The aim of this film is to try to do that somehow. I think people are connecting with that and it’s beautiful.

Angelina, do you take a peek at what people are writing?

JOLIE I never read reviews. Not the good or the bad. I actually have read the bad in the past when I’ve directed, because I’m curious about what is or isn’t landing.

They’ve been pretty good for this one…

JOLIE Yeah, I’ve heard through people I trust and love. And I’ll ask Pablo if there’s a concern or if there’s something misunderstood. But yeah, it [this film] is so new for me. We just put this out, and I’m so emotionally connected to it that it means a lot for people to be kind or open to it.

I suspect I know the answer to this, but why are you so emotionally connected to this film in particular? Is there more of you personally in it, or is it the amount of prep and work that went into it, or something else?

JOLIE I haven’t fully analyzed that myself. It certainly was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Anytime you’re playing a real person whose life has meant so much to people, you think of that individual and you carry that responsibility. On this one, I really felt that every step. When you walk inside someone else’s footsteps, you connect to them — and on this one in particular, which is about the last days of her life.

Pablo, some people refer to your last three movies — 2016’s Jackie, 2021’s Spencer and now Maria — as a trilogy. Do you?

LARRAÍN I never planned to make three movies. I was invited to do Jackie by Darren Aronofsky, and then we thought about doing Spencer, and then before that movie was over, we invited Angie to play Callas. So it’s like an accidental three movies that have some form of connection.

They’re all about 20th century female icons. Maria and Jackie were both involved with Aristotle Onassis. Princess Diana was kind of haunted by Anne Boleyn, who Maria’s singing about. And they all died too young. Anything else?

LARRAÍN I guess they were all dealing with very strong relationships, and they have in common that they all were able to find their own place on earth by themselves, not related to a man, basically related to their real identity, I think. But yeah, there are connections because they basically shaped a big chunk of what we understand of the second-half of the last century.

Angelina, I don’t think you’ve sung before in films, and I don’t know if you had a particular interest in Maria Callas before this. Pablo, what made you think of Angelina for the part?

LARRAÍN It’s a little bit embarrassing to say this in front of her.

JOLIE Yeah, I kind of feel like you shouldn’t say it.

LARRAÍN But I’ll do it, of course. We met twice in previous years before we connected on this. When I thought about enormous mystery that Maria Callas had, I thought, “She [Jolie] can do that.” There’s a lot that you need to imagine and complete, and I think cinema is about what we as an audience can complete. And then the discipline — a movie like this requires a lot of discipline, not just to prepare for the role, but to hold it as you shoot it. Angelina is someone who was there to work; she is a worker, like everyone else in that set. And then, having someone that would be called “La Diva” by all the other characters who would have that sort of energy, that presence, and she obviously has that. This woman [Callas] is an icon, and we needed to have an icon play another icon. What makes an icon? If I would be able to explain it, then it would be a formula and people could just recreate it. It’s not possible. Sorry, Angelina, I had to say it.

JOLIE I’m embarrassed. [laughs]

This movie raises an interesting thing about celebrity. Callas was such a huge name in her time, but today, probably nine out of 10 people on the street wouldn’t know who she was.

LARRAÍN Especially in the US.

JOLIE In the U.S., yeah.

Angelina, she died when you were just two. What, if anything, did you know about her prior to this project coming along?

JOLIE I knew some of her music, I knew of her, but so much of this was a discovery for me. I hope what audiences find is that there was so much research done into what we believe she really was like — the human being behind the voice and behind the image. Maybe not “behind the voice,” because the voice is the woman. But I think even if I’d read biographies on her, I [wouldn’t have understood her] until I stepped in and kind of felt her. I hope more people discover her and opera and go to the opera and listen to opera. It’s really a transformative, unique art form — I think it does something to our souls that is essential.

Pablo, you grew up going to the opera?

LARRAÍN My parents would get a year pass. I was more interested than my brothers and sisters. I understood that opera is something that takes all of your attention. You can’t have opera playing in the background. It’s not like pop music or any other form of music. If you listen to opera, it’s the only thing you can do. And it’s something that can be transformative, can make you feel things that are impossible to explain. I grew up not really caring about the argument of the opera — I was not reading the subtitles because it would take my eyes off the stage and the singers. It’s an entirely emotional process, and I think that’s what we all did in this film. Everyone from Guy [Hendrix Dyas], our production designer, to Massimo [Cantini Parrini], our costume designer — everyone was just creating this operatic world that felt like, I don’t know, a construction of an opera stage inside of her own house, inside of her imagination.

Angelina, did having to sing give you pause about doing this film? I mean, even the greatest singer alive today would probably be intimidated about having to “do” Callas…

JOLIE Oh, it was daunting. At first, I really didn’t understand opera, so I was naive enough to think that I was just going to take singing classes and we would somehow do the magic of movies and make it through. Then it became very clear to me that you really can’t fake opera, and that I was going to actually have to learn how to sing. He [Pablo] knew this all along, of course, but this became more and more clear to me. But what a great privilege to have the support of a director like Pablo, who believes in you and supports a team around you to train you and teach you and grow your instrument and help you to do something you didn’t think you could ever do. So, though it was really frightening, I never didn’t think, “How fortunate am I?”

Pablo, can you explain the technicalities of how you blended Angelina’s voice with Callas’s voice?

LARRAÍN This is not pop music or rock. It’s not asking Angie to sing, I don’t know, David Bowie. Opera requires a pitch, so you need to be in the right pitch to find the color, the structure of the melody and the emotion that Callas sang with. First she [Jolie] learned how to stand, posture, breathing, then the accent of the words that she was singing, mostly in Italian — and then just sang it over and over again. On the set, she had an earpiece [playing the accompanying music] and she was singing out loud with no amplification, in front of the crew — sometimes there were 50 people, sometimes 200, sometimes 500. The only thing that we heard was Angie’s voice, nothing else, because everything else is through wires. [With regard to the mix blending Jolie’s and Callas’s voices], I’ll tell you who does it. It’s a guy called John Warhurst, who has been doing this for many years. He did it with Rami Malek [for Bohemian Rhapsody], and the Bob Marley movie [Bob Marley: One Love], and now he’s doing the Michael Jackson movie [Michael]. It’s really the only way to do it. He explained to me, and then I said, “You have to [explain it to Jolie].” So we had a Zoom call, and Angie was blinking fast on the other side— [laughs]

JOLIE As he was explaining. [laughs]

LARRAÍN If we capture her voice, then we not only have her voice, but we have the breathing, the emotion, and every sound she produces is there. So then, when we mix it, you have the elements. We don’t want to spoil it, but in the last rehearsal when she [Callas] is singing in the present, that’s mostly Angie. And then when we go to La Scala in ’59, and it’s Callas’ prime, but there’s a little bit of Angie. Sometimes it’s two percent, five percent or seven percent in the prime. In the present, it could be up to 50. And in some moments, it could be 80. But there’s always a balance, never forgetting that we’re making a movie about the greatest opera voice.

Angelina, you and Maria obviously are totally different people from totally different eras, but what are the ways, if any, that you found that you most relate to her? I mean, it seems to me that there are certain things about her that few people could understand more than you…

JOLIE Yes. I think it must be obvious to the audience, because I get asked this every time. It’s quite interesting. I almost want to ask it back, to hear what everybody else is thinking—

Well, I could throw out a few if you want.

JOLIE Oh, okay.

It’s up to you. Do you want to hear?

JOLIE Sure.

I mean, she was obviously one of the most well-known people in the world. People weren’t always particularly nice about her. Her personal relationships were discussed a lot, which is probably not a lot of fun. I don’t know, am I leaving anything out? Are those accurate?

JOLIE I think that is accurate and what people would see. I think the truth is where we really connect is in our dedication to our work, our vulnerability, our loneliness and our love of communicating with an audience.

Angelina, this is kind of one of these impossible questions, but would you rather have been a very famous person when she was one or now?

JOLIE I don’t know because I didn’t live at that time, so I can’t compare. I think we’re all curious about living at a different time.

The film suggests that Callas died with two people that really cared about her. Is that a happy thing to know or a sad thing to know? Both were on her payroll, but they seemed to really care a lot about her…

JOLIE I think those people did really care about her, and she wasn’t completely alone, and I’m very happy for that. I’m very grateful to them for that.

LARRAÍN And there were more than two people. The movie needs to reduce certain things. But those wonderful Italian actors, Pierfrancesco [Favino, who plays Callas’s butler] and Alba [Rohrwacher, who plays Callas’s maid], were extraordinary.

Maria is clearly haunted by the sound of her voice from the past, to the extent that she’s not even able to listen to recordings of it. Angelina, how do you do if, say, you’re watching TV and come across a film of yours from the past?

JOLIE I mean, there are quite a few of my films I’ve never seen, but she didn’t listen to her music for very different reasons, I think. I love the experience of creating; I don’t necessarily like the experience of watching my own work. I do love to know if an audience connected. It depends. Some things have come on from when I was young, and I’ll see my kids enjoy them, and I can remember a different time and the people I knew then — it’s like a family album sometimes when you see your old work. But I won’t watch it [all the way through]. Do you [Pablo]?

LARRAÍN Never. I never look back.

JOLIE Really?

LARRAÍN I don’t do that. No, I can’t.

JOLIE Have your children, though, asked to see any of your work? Because that’s how it happened to me.

LARRAÍN Well, most of my movies in Latin America are on Netflix, so they have seen some of them. But there’s one thing I’d like to say before you go, that I think is very important. Opera started in the 16th century. The aim was to connect the theater with popular music. It was really a folkloric event, and it was for the masses. And then over the years, because of the Germans, it became a more elitist type of artwork. And then Maria Callas sang most of what is known as bel canto, which is a tradition of composers, mostly Italian, and they were more popular. She followed the tradition that first was Caruso and then Maria and then Pavarotti and today, to some extent, is Andrea Bocelli: they were people that were trying to put opera back where it belongs, which is not in elitist, $500 seats kind of shows, but where people could just really enjoy and feel that music out there. Maria Callas did that. If this movie — thanks to Angelina, thanks to Callas, thanks to everyone who did this film, and obviously thanks to the composers that made that music — can make one person, five, ten, one million, or whatever it is, interested in opera, then I feel that we will have succeeded in a very beautiful way, because we’re trying to put opera where it belongs, back to the masses.

thr

Kevin Feige, Marvel chief creative officer and the architect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is sharing his first public comments about the Scorsese debate in a wide-ranging conversation with The Hollywood Reporter awards columnist Scott Feinberg on the latest episode of the Awards Chatter podcast.
"I think that's not true. I think it's unfortunate," Feige says when asked about the notion that superhero movies are a negative for cinema. "I think myself and everyone who works on these movies loves cinema, loves movies, loves going to the movies, loves to watch a communal experience in a movie theater full of people."
While audiences have flocked to those films, Scorsese has argued they have no real stakes. "What's not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger," Scorsese wrote in his Times piece. "Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes."
But Feige has long maintained that Marvel Studios seeks to make different types of films, and over the years has touted 2015's Ant-Man as a heist film and 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a political thriller. In response to Scorsese, Feige brings up more recent examples of the risks the studio has taken, noting that Marvel hasn't made an Iron Man film since 2013 and instead pitted Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark against Chris Evans' Captain America in 2016's Captain America: Civil War.
...
Feige also points to Angelina Jolie's The Eternals, currently being shot in the Canary Islands by filmmaker Chloe Zhao and starring characters that few outside of Marvel die-hards have heard of.
"It is a very big movie. It is a very expensive movie. And we are making it because we believe in [Zhao's] vision and we believe in what those characters can do and we believe we need to continue to grow and evolve and change and push our genre forward," says Feige. "That's a risk if I've ever heard one."

Random Fuzzy

Notable in the Awards Chatter podcast:

-The big, oft-misquoted and misrepresented part is of course when she was asked about By The Sea:

Feinberg:  You laughed that it was pretty much right on the heels of your wedding in 2014.  It's not the way everybody chooses to have a honeymoon.
Yeah, it may not have been a good idea.

You and Brad play a couple going through a horrible time after the wife has 2 miscarriages. Was it a healthy thing to put yourself through at that point?
“It should have been good for us.  To be honest I wanted to work with him because we worked, we had met working together and we work together well.  And even though it was a challenging role, we'd matured.  And I wanted us to do some serious work together and I wanted to see him do that kind of work.  So I thought that it could be a good way for us to communicate.  And I think in some ways  it was, and in some ways we learned some things. But there was a heaviness probably during that situation that carried on and it wasn’t because of the film. (giggles) It was something that we were dealing, that you know.  Things happen for different reasons, and things, you know -- 'Why did I write that exact piece? Why did we feel the way about it we did when we made it?' I’m not sure.”

Obviously it's about grief but it's also connected in other ways.. I read you wrote it shortly after the death of your mother ... and then when you were finishing it was when, you were in the editing room and you had another health scare.  So it seems every step of the way there was something.
I don't know.  I mean my life has been, I've had many, many extraordinary, very fortunate things happen, and it's also been many different things over the years, that have been challenging.  So that wasn't a particular time just when I wrote it.  I mean, if we look at it, I had my mastectomy right before I shot Unbroken.  Over the span of that decade, I did lose my mother,  I did have my mastectomy, and I did then have an ovarian cancer scare and have that surgery as well. And other things, of course, that happen in life that you go through.
It really depends, a piece of art can be something that can be healing or it can just be difficult.  I still don’t know.  I’m happy we did that film because we did explore something together, and whatever it was, maybe it didn’t solve certain things, but it did, we did communicate something that maybe needed to be communicated to each other.”


Recall:

Inquirer
Ruben Nepales, November 06, 2015

So can you talk about that—you just had your wedding and you had to direct Brad.
"We thought, this is the best honeymoon because we felt, as the film says in the end—whatever you go through, weather the storm and stay together. It was a message to each other of we are going to weather whatever comes and we are going to stick together, so that was nice."



WSJ 2015
Julia Reed

"When something happens in your life that’s a dramatic thing, you either pull together or you go into your own,” Jolie Pitt says, referring to By the Sea and the trauma that drives a wedge between Roland and Vanessa. “So many times, people divorce very quickly. To me, if this film has a message, it’s that you have to try to weather the storm together no matter what. And that’s a beautiful thing.”

As Angelina Jolie awaits the release of 'Unbroken,' she says directing husband Brad Pitt brought them 'closer'

Her WWII survival drama, about Louis Zamperini, is set for Christmas Day; she teams up with Pitt in 'By the Sea' 

BY  JOE NEUMAIER 

Sunday, December 21, 2014, 2:00 AM

 Jolie tells the Daily News that directing Pitt while the two made her marital crisis drama, “By the Sea" — opening next year — made her fall in love with him more.

“It brought us closer,” she says.

 “The scenes on ‘By the Sea’ were so tense that we let out (any stress) on camera. There’s really heavy fighting in it, so I think sometimes the crew felt like, ‘Mom and Dad are having a fight!’ — because Brad and I are the producers too,” she said. “Success or failure, it’s all on us.

“But it was all oddly freeing. We both wanted to do something as artists ... and push each other. So we got this opportunity to go out there and play.

“I had missed being that free as an actor, and to do that depth of work, and what a pleasure it was to do it with Brad, because I really saw him as an actor, not just the man I loved,” she says. “In the end, it was an amazing thing, because there’s no actor who wants to help me more, or push me more as an actress, or give me more as a director or writer than my husband, and there’s no man I want to see succeed more than him. We were so there for each other.”
......

 Though married only since August — and globe-trotting from sets around the world to homes in Los Angeles, New Orleans or France — Pitt and Jolie are dedicated to setting aside Christmas as family time, she says.

“Our tradition is, well, being somewhat traditional,” Jolie reveals, even cozily referring to herself and Pitt as “Mom and Dad” when detailing their household holiday.

“Dad is the main one to deal with the tree, Mom and the kids help decorate, and then we put all the kids to bed. And, as anybody who has a big family knows, [the gifts] take a really long time! You have to be very organized when you’re wrapping them and putting presents around the tree. And you have to make sure no one gets up and leaves before everyone else is done.

“It’s all a bit military! We’re constantly cleaning up the wrapping paper and getting coffee, like any other parent,” she says.

And like other parents, Pitt and Jolie must deal with the inevitable problem of limiting the expectations of kids who have spent all year staying nice rather than naughty.

 “We make a point not to spoil them, but there’s usually that one item they've been wanting for a long time that we’ve held back until Christmas,” she says. “They’ve each got that big thing.”

******

Also interesting in the Awards Chatter podcast:

- "I had this feeling that I couldn't face a first Christmas without my mother so I really wanted to be pregnant.  So during Changeling, I got pregnant with the twins."
Recall what she said about Loung in VF :  "She’s that girlfriend who rolled up her sleeves, got on a plane, and helped me on Christmas morning,”

Waking up on Christmas Day without Brad was hard for her.  Before the family left for Crested Butte, she arranged for one of the therapists to join them for a Christmas celebration so that Brad could celebrate Christmas with them, but she couldn't ask the therapist to leave her own family celebration on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.  Recall: "A source tells Us that Jolie organized the holiday get-together and that the kids' therapist — who supervises their visits with the Allied actor — was also there. "[Brad] gave them presents."  Earlier, a rep said, "Angie is not big on Christmas.  The kids have gifts, but she's teaching them not to be materialistic."  She let Brad be the one to hand the kids the "big thing" they each had been hoping to get for Christmas.  Angelina had brought the family forward to this point by helping Brad through "family therapy sessions" after he struggled for weeks to reconnect with the younger kids, while the older boys refused to see him again after walking out of one brief visit.


- "And I even went home and said to Brad, 'There's this one.'  And he said, 'Oh honey, that one's been around forever.'
I recall that this was, almost word for word, how she recounted it before, but it's revealing that she repeated even the "Oh honey" part.  She had been more circumspect earlier in the conversation when she avoided identifying him by name --  "And then, somebody saw it and said, they thought it wasn't so bad."  The "Oh honey" anecdote was less important to the story she was telling than how he encouraged her to move forward with  her script, but by then she had lowered her guard after chatting for an hour about her entire life.


- "Publicist, I never really got along with.  Had to have them for emergencies and it's never worked out."
Her reference to publicists (them - plural) seems to indicate she is referring to both hers and Brad's -- and she strongly disliked what they, as a team, did.  She was likely deeply unhappy with the way they ended up projecting an image of an ugly, acrimonious split.  It was an image Brad made repeated efforts to reject in GQStyle and noted "my partner in this agrees."  I thought the rep who was speaking for her was calmer and more truthful than the one who spoke for Brad, but both enjoyed talking too much and their public sparring fed fuel to the fire.  Their services were likely terminated not long after the family returned from Crested Butte, leaving the tabloids without the sources they had relied on for stories and quotes.  Now that the family is no longer in an "emergency" situation, the people still active on their team are largely their long-time reps led by his manager and her lawyer -- who are experienced in the game and tight-lipped.

She basically also confirmed that she does not have a manager.  That the one statement released by Geyer Kosinski after she filed didn't mean that he had been rehired.



(On having a kneeling/standing scene in all her 4 films)
 - "But I wonder if there's something to that.  That idea of something I've been always trying to find in life.   Like when you're up against something and you have to find what you stand for, and you have to fight for it.  And you have to, your will and your drive, and will you stay standing or will you fall.  Or will you accept that you're responsible and then will somebody step forward."

(liking imperfect heroes)
-  "I loved the idea of this story of somebody who is not perfect, and actually not special in any way other than his will and his spirit are strong.  And I think we need more of those."

(emerging stronger from dark times)
- "Me personally I believe things evolve....We've hit very, very dark times and we've come out stronger. And sometimes things can crystallize something and then you understand even clearer what you need to fight for and why, and what you need to hold on to and why.  And so I think that can be, and maybe must be, the way people have to look at dark times."


Even though she is not directly referencing Brad and the family above, given how her life over the past year and a half has been totally consumed by the family situation, they inevitably intruded into her thoughts.

One of the thoughts that threads prominently throughout is her will and desire to fight for what is important to her and what she holds dear.  Recall a few days after she filed: "A family member exclusively tells PEOPLE "Her family is broken and she is in agony. Her children are recovering from the events that brought about the filing of the divorce"  She had to care for both sides separately even as she had to fight and work hard to bring them back together, to heal her broken family.

The children -- innocent, impressionable and vulnerable -- were the ones she had to attend to first.  She was with them constantly, talking to and reassuring them, and sat with them in their sessions with the therapists who helped guide them in overcoming the trauma and helped explain how their father ended up behaving the way he did.

Looking after Brad was much, much more complicated.  She couldn't be physically with him, at least not openly, especially in the beginning when they were prohibited from any direct contact by the DCFS' child protection plan.  Brad was forced to live alone while he grappled with myriad debilitating emotions, had to deal with substance withdrawal, and face simultaneous DCFS and FBI investigations.  She knew he was in a fragile state, devastated by the filing, despondent at not being able to join her and the children, and alarmingly entertaining suicidal thoughts.  She was desperate to help him but could only do so stealthily, hiding from both the public and the DCFS, who had compelled her to file to safeguard the children's healing.

One of the ways she protected him was by shielding from the public the details of what truly transpired: why all the children ended up with severe trauma, and what led Maddox and Pax to spurn him and resist his efforts at reconciliation.  What we do know is that it was serious enough for the DCFS to place a protective order against him and restrict him to limited, monitored contact with the children. 

She is "quite an emotional person, very empathetic" even with total strangers, and so much more so with Brad, who sources close to her kept repeating was still the "love of her life" in the wake of her filing.  She quickly moved past being upset with him to empathizing with his problems.  She understood his difficulty in facing his substance addiction, and why he had trouble grasping the seriousness of the children's condition and comprehending the therapists' decisions.  She understood how his frustration with his slow progress reconnecting with the children led him to flail about seeking a quick solution against the Custody Stipulation.  She knew it was his desire to do what was right and what was needed by the family, but that he sometimes lacked self-discipline, clear thinking, and will-power.

She had to fight to be strong for the whole family because they were all dependent on her to carry them through.

While Brad had confessed that the "weird" journey was "self-inflicted" due to "things I wasn't dealing with, I was boozing too much," and enumerated other shortcomings, she never pinned any blame on him.  She never alluded to any of the problems he already admitted to having.  She never spoke of the incident on the plane, the DCFS, or the children's trauma and recovery.  She always referred to their situation in nebulous terms: "the events that led to the filing", "things got difficult", "there was a heaviness" because of "something" that they were dealing with.  Although he owned up to being at fault, she didn't want him to carry the burden of responsibility for the entire situation on his own and so she is effectively sharing it with him.

She nursed and guided him back to a healthier mindset, and gently encouraged him to follow and benefit from the therapeutic process.  She reassured him of her enduring love, that they would "weather the storm together no matter what" and turn it to the family's benefit by emerging "stronger and closer."  He acknowledged all that she did and showered her in turn with "a lot of" love and gratitude: "There’s still much beauty in the world and a lot of love. And a lot of love to be given."  And it shows.

"We are and forever will be a family. I am coping with finding a way through to make sure that this somehow makes us stronger and closer."...  " We will be stronger when we come out of this because that's what we're determined to do as a family."..."We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal."

-  She spent over a year "being a Mom", "just to be with my kids,” because they "needed me home." She "couldn’t be at the final post (production for FTKMF). because of family issues. "

There is obviously no longer any need for her to be constantly at home wit the children.   She has been busy promoting FTKMF virtually nonstop since it debuted in Telluride in early September.  She went alone to Vancouver in mid-November while the kids presumably stayed behind in L.A.  Brad has been free since early November when Ad Astra wrapped.  She said she expects to start Maleficent 2 in January and it appears to be gearing up.*  As before, when she is working all day on a film, it will be Brad's turn to look after the kids. The family appears to have already achieved it's goal of reunification.  They even flew back together from Nice on a private plane in late June, retracing their steps from that fateful September 14, 2016 flight.  Recall she said that the DeMille was a big jump forward for them when they moved there in mid-June.  She said it was happy and light and they reportedly plan further extensive renovations in much the same way they (or mare specifically Brad) worked on Miraval.

Laura Wasser reminded Lance Spiegel last November 2016 that the reunification process was estimated to take from 6 months to a year -- but this was before Brad tried to muscle his way past the therapists.  How much Brad's ill-advised legal and other actions could have setback his securing favorable evaluations from the therapists and the custody evaluator is perhaps the outstanding question now.   Attempting to circumvent the Custody Stipulation and side-step the therapists almost surely carried serious consequences, but even his recent pick up of a joint may have had repercussions.  The Custody Stipulation includes a provision for weekly random drug and alcohol tests which could detect even a single use of pot, and it has not been legally lifted.


****

*Two weeks ago, Joaquim Rønning posted a photo taken in his brand new, still empty office at Walt Disney Studios with the note "New office - new adventure ✨💫✨",   and then just today (12/11), he posted a new note that he was on his way from L.A. to London.

Recall she told Baz Bamigboye in September:

'They like the idea of going to London, so we are looking at the possibility of maybe doing Maleficent 2, perhaps in January.  
They do like the idea of Mum doing something with action. They want Mum to get herself together, and do some kick-ass. It's been a while. My last action film was eight years ago,'

She told Feinberg on the topic of action movies: "I'm looking for one now, in fact, 'cause of this time in my life, I feel like I need to." She is actually looking at one as Maleficent will apparently be kicking-ass in the sequel.



-- Fussy

Awards chatter podcast: Angelina Jolie (@FTKMFNetflix) https://t.co/IwOBmjpoK1 pic.twitter.com/Ymidw9PDvn

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 7, 2017

THR Awards Chatter

By Scott Feinberg (The Hollywood Reporter). 

One of the most famous, accomplished, beautiful and enigmatic women in the world opens up about her love-hate relationship with acting (and how her choice of roles has been impacted by her rollercoaster of a personal life), her gravitation toward directing (her fourth directorial effort, a Khmer-language drama, is Cambodia's entry in this season's best foreign-language film Oscar race) and why being a mom — of six — and a humanitarian means more to her than anything else.
Credits: Hosted by Scott Feinberg, recorded and produced by Matthew Whitehurst.

LINK

****

Transcript

"I'm ridiculously Hollywood.  I was born in Hollywood, Cedars-Sinai.  My parents were both trained to be actors.  My father is still in actor.  My mother gave up her career to raise children.

Do you think having folks who were actors make you more or less interested in going down that route yourself.
"It's a funny thing.  Looking back, I think it would have been nice to..I never had who suggested I could be anything else. So there's many, many positives. The one odd negative is that a lot of people in this town think that being an actor is the greatest thing in in the world and the greatest thing to be.  And so you're pushed to be that before you are able to consider other ways of life.  And that somehow is that natural thing that everybody should want.  I think the positive side is that being artists, my mother having been trained, and she worked with Lee Strasberg, is that she was very attuned to emotion.  I think artistic parents tend to be very creative, and have conversations with their children on a certain emotional level that maybe not everybody does in that same way, because their job is to study human behavior and communicate.  So I think that made her an interesting mother.

Is the reason that you go by Angelina Jolie instead of Angelina Jolie Voight because you as young person wanted to distance yourself from the whole Hollywood?  What was that about?
"No, I was entering Hollywood.  I do think it was wanting to do it.  I didn't feel that close to my father.  I felt more my mother's daughter when I was a child.  And so that was one part of it.  The 2nd part of it is that I did want to have my own identity and I didn't want to walk into a room as Jon's daughter.  I wanted to see if I could get the job on my own, and not be hired for a name.

So you mentioned Lee Strasberg and your first technical credit in movies was  when you were 7 in a thing with your Dad, Looking to Get Out 
That's right. Soon you forget.  My brother was supposed to do it, at the last minute he wouldn't and so then I ended up doing it.

But it seem like when it became more of a conscious decision this was something you wanted to explore, I read as early as11 you enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theater and later did other things with theater -- a theater ensemble in LA with some impressive folks, and you also co-founded a theater group with Tom Bower.  Was there ever a time when you thought your future as an actress would be in theater as opposed to screen acting?
I don't know.  I don't think I ever thought I was that good in theater.  I think it's a very particular talent to be on stage and to communicate to the back of the theater.  I always felt that I was more internal.  And funny enough, I had to recently when I did Maleficent, I went back to my theater roots to get more comfortable again trying to hit that back in the theater and find that voice and a more theatrical performance. Theater for me is such an extraordinary challenge and something I just didn't ever believe in myself as being good enough in fact to do.

I read a lot of the profiles and things written earlier in you career and it seems like people would always come back to this idea and I don't know if you would subscribe to it but that you were a "wild child."
No

That I guess your boyfriend was living with you at 14, you moved out at 16.  Do you think you were rebelling against anything as a kid? Or was that overstated.
(laughs) "I love that the entire world knows that I lived with somebody at 14 and that somehow it's relevant.  It sounds weirder than it was. I  think.  I always made very strong choices.  I was very strong willed.  I didn't blend in very well.  All of those things.  I think I still am a bit like that.  I don't know.  I see that same wild in my children, in that sense of wanting to kind of break barriers, and I see them finding something very strong and needing to go on their own way and maybe sometimes that its against what society's norms are. And I think that's wonderful.  I think that's the thing that eventually makes for change.  And so but of course it needs to be directed.  You know, when you're young, it can  get you in a lot of trouble and it can be self-destructive, and it can be just chaotic.  When it finds purpose, it can be fantastic. And it can be something that then guides you in your life.  So a sense of wild or a sense of unconventional is I think something I've always embraced and try to continue to embrace.

And in terms of channeling it as you say into something positive it sounds like one of these that suggested that when you broke up with that boyfriend I guess at 16 that was when you decided that you were going to focus on acting?  For some reason..
I like how he's gotten involved.  (laughs) I did not know I'd be discussing this today.  Well, what's interesting was, to be very honest, my mother knew that when I was 14 I was going to start dating and she felt, knowing me, that she wanted it to be on my terms, in my room, under her roof, in a way that was safer and where I could feel in control.  And it was actually a very smart choice because I didn't date again until I got married.  So her extreme decision then actually made me much more, what happened was yes when we separated, some of my girl friends had dated many people.  I'd lived with someone, I was ready to be alone.  I was ready to work. And I focused on work and I moved out and I graduated early, and I got to work.  And yes, didn't entertain a relationship until I met Jonny and got married.

At 17 just a year after that you had your first sizeable film role in 1993 the futuristic thriller Cyborg 2 the Last Shadow.
Believe it or not I was out of my mind excited that I got that.  I jumped up and down the bed. My first big -- my Mom and I were out of our minds.
That was a very physical, sort of almost a precursor for some of the roles you would play later.
Yeah. I mean I did audition for a lot of normal roles, I just didn't get them. (laughs) I didn't really fit in to those things.  And so I was very lucky that I came up at a time when female action heroes, female strong roles, female leaders were becoming OK and I was just very, very lucky that I hit that moment.

But when you saw the movie what was your reaction.
"I threw up.

Literally? Why?
Well listen, I am somebody who still, and I won't name which films, but I don't see a lot of my films because my idea of what they were or what I felt things, I tend to not like when I see the final film.  So I think I worked on it and I had in my mind what the film was going to be.  I never thought it was going to be a great film,  (laughs) but I thought it was OK and I gave my all.  And then I saw it and it was just. I mean now I think it's something I adore.  Now it's something that's hysterical and I show, my kids can see a piece of it. It's so funny  But then I felt like I'd embarrassed myself and I didn't know if this was something I could do for a living.  And I didn't like being exposed in a way.  Not what other people would think, I just really didn't like what I saw.  I really didn't like me.  It didn't feel like me.  It felt I had betrayed something and I did something I didn't like.  So I got really, really upset.   And my brother was there with me and he helped me and made me feel like it was going to be OK. But I quickly went back to acting school. (laughs)

Because you were somehow lacking?  That it was somehow your fault?
Sure.  Well I mean yes, you always.  Its your job to do the best you can.  If something doesn't work you can't blame other people.  You have to look at where you can be better, your part of it, if you're going to be an artist.  So you try to solve things so next time you'll get it right.  Next time, you'll watch for those things and fix it.

And as it turns out that seems to have been the case.  Over the next few years people started to notice and respect your work.  There was the hackers in Hackers, there was he drifter in Foxfire -- these are mid-90s -- and then the crime boss girlfriend in Playing God.  In that same period as you referenced a second ago, you got married for the first time to your co-star in Hackers Jonny Lee Miller and in an interview at that time you said that you felt that your identity could get lost at that time as your identity changes when you are with somebody and that in a way it was the roles you picked afterwards that helped you reclaim your identity.  Do you know what you were referring  to?
I don't know. Was I weird about losing my identity or was I really just trying to figure out who I am like we all are.  So yes, I think you want to figure out who you are.  There's a lot that's not in my nature to be an actor,.  I'm very happy that I was able to be one — I'm very lucky and very fortunate — I realized how much it was for my mother when she passed away, because I felt very differently about it as soon as she was gone. I think when I started acting, it was a good means, it was a job, and I wanted to help my mom with bills. It was a creative job, something that you get to explore different times in history, different people, different types of persons, different sides of yourself.  Learn different skills — so it's a wonderful job to have as you grow and as you learn as a person. But you are also are not those people and you're young, you don't know exactly who you are. And yet you also get a microphone in front of your face, and you're 17, 18, people are asking you your opinions, and you haven't formed them yet. And you shouldn't form them yet, completely.  So yes, I think I was trying to find which characters made sense to me, and also trying to stay true to myself.  Not just take any job or do anything to work but to define something that made sense to me.

Things really wen into high gear when you had back-to-back TV films that won Golden Globes.  George Wallace for TNT, you played Wallace's 2nd wife Cornelia, and then Gia for HBO as the ill-fated model and if these were the first parts where you were really able to dive into a character, do the kind of work that, sort of a precursor to the more complex characters you played later on.  Did you feel that with one or both of those you were taking it to a different level?
"Yes. I was allowed to do a certain kind of work with directors and certain character work that wasn't demanded of me before and very, very lucky to have those roles and work with those other actors and those directors. So I was very happy.  It was a nice time with Jonny, it was a nice time in my life and it was nice time to explore relationships and you learn a lot in these films.

Why after Gia did you take a break and go back to school, at this point for NYU.  This was the first thought of directing probably right? 
"It's hard to explain yourself when you're still a mystery to yourself.  (laughs)  Again I think I've always been in this struggle being an actor or being public.  It never answered everything for me.  It was never that I suddenly got to act and then why would I make choices, I made choices because I still wasn't me, I still wasn't feeling complete and whole as a person.  After Gia I separated from Jonny and I separated amicably. We still are very close friends.  But we were young and I was moving to New York, we were all just, there's life to be lived and we needed some space to do so and help each other grow.
So I moved to New York on my own, didn't know anybody, got an apartment, and started to go to NYU.  Because I thought I had expressed what I could as an actor, and now I wanted to figure out who else I was.

You thought acting was over at that point.
"Yeah. I was ready to kind of have a different life. I'd grown up in Hollywood and New York — mainly Hollywood. I'd done what everybody said you should do — become an actor. This is what should make you happy, right? People tell you if you look good enough, if you have money, if you have success, if you're an actor, these are all the things that should make a person happy. I was miserable. I was completely unhappy.

This was after the Golden Globes...
"When I moved there they hadn't come out yet, I hadn't won anything, but yes.  The years that would follow — that I would win awards and lose my privacy — were not necessarily happy years. I was grateful to be acknowledged as an artist, I was grateful to be working, I was grateful to be able to help my mom, but I was very, very lost because I didn't like that life, I didn't like having a public life, so it was weird. It was a strange time.

When did you first realize that privacy, anonymity was gone?
"It was after Gia. I had been going on the subway to school everyday and then I was being stared at on the subway.  And then someone followed me home.  So it wasn't as much, at the time there wasn't people carrying phones or paparazzi, it was more because when people see films, like that film in particular dealt with someone coming to terms with their own sexuality and also dealt with AIDS, so people that identified with this film were people dealing with some of those issues.  And I'm quite an emotional person, very empathetic, and so for me, when someone follows me home and tells me things about their life, the ones who would follow would be people who had AIDS, people who were coming out of their parents for the first time and needed to talk to somebody, people who were young and lost.  And it's impossible not to want to sit for hours and talk to everyone and feel a responsibility to do so, and let that into your soul in a way.  So that part of it is the privacy I'm talking about that I lost.  And you feel this different connection with the world and you feel you're a little more open and you have a responsibility. It was a different life so I stayed home a lot, I didn't know how to answer those questions, I didn't know how to help, and I wasn't strong enough to respond to other people and I didn't know how to be what I was expected to be.  Either publicly, privately.  I just really didn't know.  

With all that being the case how did you end up not just being back in LA but back acting and in the film role that you won your Oscar for, Girl, Interrupted?  It sounds like you were ready to pack it in and you had some of the best work of your life.
Well, thank you. When you are ready to walk away from everything you have a certain freedom.  I didn't move to LA and do Girl, Interrupted, I moved when I met Billy Bob. And then I moved away again I moved to London, I moved back when I met Brad.  So (laughs) I kept trying to leave.   Again, I feel connected to this town for many reasons but I did want to also have a different life.
These roles come and you work on different things and you have different experiences.  I was lucky Girl, Interrupted came, there was a part of me that was feeling quite mad, and quite unhinged and in fact I approached that role as somebody who wasn't crazy but somebody who was extremely sane in a world that didn't make sense to her and really, really searching for answers.  And somebody to be honest with her.  And I think that's what I was desperately wanting at that time, somebody to be really straight with me.
So yes, that film came but at the same time as that film, like my earlier life it coincided with a relationship. And so that time I don't remember as much about winning an award but finding a kindred spirit in Billy, somebody who's 20 years older than me, wise, extraordinary artist, been through a lot, really grounding, really kind, really funny, and just a brilliant, caring person.  So loved the years we spent together and learned a lot from him.
So your artistic journey kind of always coincides with life and if you're lucky, your life remains more full than those characters on screen. 

So after an Oscar, for a lot of people, it changes the kind of offers coming at them.  There can be different considerations about what you're looking for.  For you it seems like Gone in 60 Seconds would have been in the can, when you won.
Yeah

But now you get offered Lara Croft Tomb Raider which in this case is an action for the  first time since Cyborg 2 that you..
It was time to revisit.. 

I mean a $150M adaptation of the video game, how did you end up doing it.  No knock on the movie.
No, I get it. I think that's probably why I did do it.  I think this idea that 'now you win an Oscar you're supposed to take yourself seriously in this way' and for me I just wanted life experiences. And to be honest, when they first called me about it I said 'No' because I'd seen the video game and thought it was a ridiculous idea. And then they came out and they said, 'You'll travel the world and train with the British military' and I thought, 'Who could possibly say no to that.'  And thank God I did because I traveled the world and went to Cambodia and my life would then change. It was also a healthy choice because I do these things sometimes when I noticed.. Action movies for me haven't just been about jumping around, as much as I love to do that, but I tend to do them when I need to feel strong.  So when my mother passed away, I did Wanted. 'Cause I thought, "I'm going to cry and cover my head with a sheet or I'm going to do an action movie.'  When I had the twins, I had been in a nightgown for months, I decided I'd do Salt.   So you go through things.  I'm looking for one now, in fact, 'cause of this time in my life, I feel like I need to

Kick some ass?
I do. (laughs)

One other thing that was remarked upon at the time and you had some say about it is Lara in the first Lara Croft movie had some very frank conversations with her dead father played by none other than Mr. Jon Voight.  You said "I wanted to say a lot of those things to my Dad, and he wanted to say them to me, and I wanted to hear them." Have you fond that cathartic as now an adult however many years after that first film that we talked about to work with your father?
Yeah, it was good.  It was good to do.  It was an early time for us, I was in a stronger place o be able to handle our relationship differently.  So I reached out and felt it was an opportunity.  And we had those weeks writing, and working and talking about our character and it was one of the first times that I can think of — and probably since, really — where we would do something as a team together.  So it was what was said, but it was the doing of it that was a big deal. Yeah.  So it was good that we did that. And Jon and I have gotten to know each other — through grandchildren now, we're finding a new relationship, and it's very, very nice. But we've had some difficulties, and it's good that through art is the way that we've been able to talk. We found it's the common language. We don't really talk politics well, we talk art very well."

So come back to what you were referring to a minute ago, among the far-flung locations you guys shot that movie was Cambodia and from the way I've heard you speak about your time there, it sounds like almost an awakening, an epiphany.  What happened there for you that changed the way you looked at the world?
So much.  I mean before I went, I was told we were going to shoot in Cambodia, I realized there's so little I knew.  I started to do research, and when I discovered how much had happened in this country, I not only realized how much my education was lacking, but I also expected to meet a very broken people.  We were the first big film back after the war and 'what was it going to be like?'  And when I met Cambodian people and I walked the land, I felt their resilience, I felt their spirit. Imagine too of course growing up, yes, I traveled a little bit as you do growing up here.  I traveled to London, to New York.  You don't come in contact with this kind of country, coming from this kind of a war, on this level of poverty. And so I just really, really understood the bigger picture in life. I really understood that I had so much more I needed to learn. And I felt very ignorant and very angry with myself, and yet I was also excited to think, 'There are these extraordinary cultures and people, and I want to get to know them, and I want to learn from them, and maybe this is what I've been searching for my whole life. Maybe this is my journey.'  I did not know at the time it was going to lead me to my family.

We'll swing back to that, but Lara Croft, the success of that leads not only to a sequel but to a much higher profile for you and just curious how you handled that and connect the dots from there through what must have been the peak point of insanity as far as the spotlight being on you with Mr & Mrs. Smith where for the first time you and Brad are working together and in the aftermath of that when you guys got together I cannot imagine that anyone has ever had to deal with more media scrutiny and observation than you guys did at that point.  I was wondering if you remember what that moment in time was like for you?
I think you need to back up to the years before that.  Because the reason why I was alright was because of the years that led to that and why I was able to withstand that.  Because by that point, I was a very different person.  And how Cambodia changed me, when I left Cambodia, I was much more conscious of the world.  I started to learn more about what was happening.  I became more involved and I learned about refugees and UNHCR and I wanted to educate myself further.  And I spent 2 years traveling before I was a Goodwill Ambassador and since then I've become a special envoy and I've dedicate 16 years of my life now to this work because I have so much respect and gratitude.  The education I've had through the extraordinary survivors I've met around the world has really changed my perspective.  So when you see people that have suffered so much, when you see that if only they had a spotlight on them, you don't complain so much about your stupid little problems, right.  You don't wake up and think, 'Oh, it's so difficult for me because of X,Y and Z.' You simply don't.  You think, 'Alright, I have an opportunity to speak publicly, now I have something to say.  Finally, I have something to say.  And I have something that needs some attention and some focus and I now am starting to form a voice.'  And so in those years I would find my voice and find my purpose.  And above all, I found Maddox, and the choice when you choose to become a parent, you choose from that moment on, the center of your world is the child, right?  So in one moment you're caught up in whatever it is you're worried about and the next minute is, as long as this person's OK, nothing else matters.  And it's extremely freeing. It's the most wonderful thing that happens when you become a parent.  And so, I changed completely with my work and becoming a mother.  And that became the center of my life.
So when I was doing Mr. and Mrs,,  Mad was 2 then, by the end of it he was 3, but by the time we finished filming, by the time it came out I had this amazing little boy, and nothing else mattered.  So nothing would and still doesn't really get under my skin in any way like it used to. As long as he's healthy, they're healthy, it's OK.

It's amazing because I would just think, when you can't have a moment's peace or whatever out in the world it would piss me off.
No, it does, but at least by the time it became that bad I had some perspective on what really bad is.  Like today, it's harder when your child wants to go to the park or do certain things and they have to deal with it.  When my kids have to deal with paparazzi or my kids have to deal with people commenting on them or judging them or having anything, that really upsets me.

I was really impressed.  I happened to be at the Jane documentary premiere at the Hollywood Bowl and you were across the aisle and I saw a few people, you know always going to try to "can I get a photo' or whatever and cause you were I think with all your kids and I thought it was amazing how calmly you handled this, I would not have the patience.
Listen, I don't have a perfect temperament.  I lose, I lose my temper.  I have my moments where I go really crazy.  But I don't mind being public in the speaking to people and talking to people and chat. If I can make somebody, if somebody comes up to me with a story about their child and I can make a little kid happy, its so nice.   How nice is that, you know?  It can be a beautiful exchange to be a public person.  People talk to me about a lot of things, Cancer to motherhood to mental health issues.  That's a beautiful way to connect with the rest of the world.  There's the other side of it that's different.   

A 3rd side I wanted to ask you about is that it seems that what makes great actors great is being able to observe people behaving naturally. When that becomes harder to do because people don't leave you alone, do you feel that has made your job as an actor harder.
When I was young, yes, I used to do a lot of study.  That's all I did when I lived my years in New York.  I would just go for walks for hours and hours and just, always alone, always watching people.  Studying things, studying behavior.  I didn't become successful when I was 13.  I did have many years of that.  And I suppose I have enough close people around me, I study their behavior.  Six little people's behavior constantly. Yeah, it's different when you're a public person.  I feel more for young actors today who are starting.  My generation, I did quite a few movies before I was public.

I guess the camera phone wasn't there.
It wasn't til much later.  But young people today have success, they're going to get all of it immediately.  And I'm not sure how they're going to handle that.

A Mighty Heart 2007, Michael Winterbottom's version of the memoir of Mariane Pearl,  You got some of he best response to your work.  I believe that was the 1st time you played somebody who is still alive.  What's that like?
That was complicate because Mariane was a dear friend. So it's both an extreme honor but then you have the pressure of: this is your real friend and her real life.  And I remember about 2 days before we started shooting, I was sitting in the kitchen and her little boy Adam came in and was asking me questions, and talking a little bit and he said a few things about his Dad and I just looked at this little boy and thought, 'That's my job.  My job is to show this little boy how much his mother loves his father. And how much she tried.  So that's a different kind of job.  The responsibility to it, the commitment, the desire to get it right.  Very, very different. And because I know her and love her, it was also a funny thing to be doing something, you feel like you're mimicking your girlfriend at a party. I was very, very nervous. But she was the most supportive.  She made it very clear to me that I couldn't fail because my heart was in the right place. 

The year after that, another one that people really responded to and in this Oscar nomination and this was Changeling. .this was with Clint. And I know that he is one of your biggest admirers and it seems from things you've said that I've read it was a pretty special one for you.  And maybe further opened you up to the idea that as an actor could also direct. Is that fair to say?
I think even then I still didn't think I could be a director. It never crossed my mind.  It happened very suddenly.  But I did learn a lot from Clint and when I finally did direct i did think often of different things he did, and Winterbottom, many of he directors I worked with.  And yes, I'm a huge fan of Clint.

Changeling came out in 2008, you made it in 2007, at the beginning of which you lost mother.  Do you think that, it's an emotional performance, she hasn't lost her mother, she lost her kid but are you somebody who channels what you're going through into the work?
Absolutely.  I did as I mentioned earlier, I tend to do that things where I do an action movie when I'm at a low in my life, so I did Wanted and got a certain kind of pain out.  I was an emotional wreck and it was good to be able to have an outlet to be able to let so much pain come out and so many tears.  And also I had this feeling that I couldn't face a first Christmas without my mother so I really wanted to be pregnant.  So during Changeling, I got pregnant with the twins.

So how do we end up, 3 years after that with you directing something that you wrote... In the Land of Blood and Honey...  Why that subject matter and how did you end up directing it?
Well, I suppose now that we've talked about my entire life  up to this point, it oddly does add up in my head.  I didn't plan to direct.  In my work with the U.N. one of the conflicts I was having trouble understanding was the war in Yugoslavia. And there was a few days that I got the flu, basically, and I went into this separate room, this white room in Miraval, where we have a house, to stay away from the kids so I didn't get them sick.  And I never have that time. (laughs) So I didn't know what to do with myself, and I thought 'I'll write a story, I'll write a script.' I've never done it.  I'll do it for fun.  And the exercise I want to give myself, can I want to learn about that war. I want to understand how people who are lovers and friends can get to a place where they murder each other.  I really want to know.  That's how the story starts and that's how the story ends.  What happens in the middle that does that to a society and to family members and lovers.  And so that was what it was and it gave me kind of a good exercise to do homework on the region and travel to he region.  I never planned on really showing it to anybody and I was doing it for myself.  And then, somebody saw it and said, they thought it wasn't so bad. And somebody else saw it.  And the next thing I knew they said we have the funds for it. And I was possessive only because it was political and sensitive and also had sexuality and I wanted to get it right.  So i felt I needed to do that to get it right.  And then I remember the day when suddenly I realized I was directing a movie and I really didn't understand how I'd gotten there.  I really felt completely overwhelmed, but full of purpose and very excited to work with actors from another country.

I'm sure you've continued to evolve as a director, FTKMF is the 4th, but it also seems you've had instincts that have held true through them all...  In this case, cast local people and film it in Bosnian and in English.  So you're basically making 2 movies.
Well it was written in English and it was funded in English.  Your in the habit of that's what people do.   You want to reach as many people, so you are raised to believe that that's what it should be in order to communicate.  And no one really questioned it.   I was working with them and I went to the bathroom, and I came back and before I sat down the whole group I had been talking to had switched and they were speaking their native tongue - the former Serbo-Croatian.   And I listened and it was a different personality, a different them  And such a beautiful language and it just felt wrong not to shoot it in their language.  But of course I'd made a deal financially to do it in English.  So I said I really feel it has to be in their local language and they said if you fall behind, even a day, you can only do English.  But if you want to  try to do both, you knock yourself out.  And so I said to the actors, 'We've been challenged, so let's take the challenge.  Let's do, on average, 2 takes of each, and let's switch quick and let's be ready.  We can do this.'  And they obviously, for their own country, were very committed to that challenge.

That's amazing.  What a gift for them to have.  And with FTKMF you've now found financial partners who see there is value in telling it in the local language.  
And also to give credit to the audience, and the audience that is interested in these subject matters wants to hear it in the voice of the people, in the language it was spoken.  They want to know the history in the real voice.  You now, 'Don't speak down to your audience, don't think that they can't hear that.'  It's also very important because languages like Khmer, special languages, ancient languages that we need to strengthen, that we need to make sure that they stay, exist, are taught.  It's part preserving the culture. 

So 3 years after Blood an Honey comes out, you're back directing again.  How, with Unbroken which people in Hollywood had been trying to do for over 50 years, here you're the one who cracks the code.  Why did you fight so hard to be the one who got the chance to do that.  I now you ended up becoming very close with Louie Zamperini and I remember you introducing him the night you became the youngest person ever to get the Jean Hersholdt Humanitarian Award he was there, and a year later when the movie came out, he was gone.  How did this, seems like a whirlwind experience with that one.
"I'm not somebody necessarily who's religious or spiritual, I'm not sure what I am, but I do believe that when you're very much on path and you're listening to your own instincts, and you're coming from the right place, things, sometimes you can see them and they kind of fall in line and you can recognize what you should be doing. And this was that for me.  I kind of looked.  You know I loved directing, I realized I much preferred giving the spotlight to other actors.  I much prefer not being in front of the camera.  I love being with the team, and I love the community, I love the family and I even like the responsibility of being the director.  So you read, they give you, 'Here's all the different movies that are out there' that you know different, to talk to studios. And if you're going to go in as director you have meetings with studios.  And so I looked through these lists and on the Universal list there was this one.  And I even went home and said to Brad, 'There's this one.'  And you know, I do love history and World War II of course is.  And he said, 'Oh honey, that one's been around forever.'

So I went in, I read a script on it and I basically explained why I didn't like the script.  And Donna said, 'Read the book.'  And I remember saying to my agent 'I'm never going to get this job.'... It's a big WWII movie, a big studio movie.  But then I read the book and I had to.  I had to understand Louie.  It was a journey I needed to take.  I wanted to know this man.  I wanted to know how you go through all this and survive that way, with your spirit intact.  I loved the idea of this story of somebody who is not perfect, and actually not special in any way other than his will and his spirit are strong.  And I think we need more of those.

And then when I got closer to doing it, I said 'Can I meet him? Where is he?' And they said, 'he knows where you live because he can see your house.'  And right up from the bedroom window was, up the mountain, but I could see him.  And we became very, very close.

Just a year after Unbroken was By The Sea.  You laughed at the fact that it was pretty much right on the heels of your wedding in 2014.  It's not the way everybody chooses to have a honeymoon.
Yeah, it may not have been a good idea. 

You and Brad play a couple going through a horrible time after the wife has 2 miscarriages. Was it a healthy thing to put yourself through at that point?
“It should have been good for us.  To be honest I wanted to work with him because we worked, we had met working together and we work together well.  And even though it was a challenging role, we'd matured.  And I wanted us to do some serious work together and I wanted to see him do that kind of work.  So I thought that it could be a good way for us to communicate.  And I think in some ways  it was, and in some ways we learned some things. But there was a heaviness probably during that situation that carried on and it wasn’t because of the film. (giggles) It was something that we were dealing, that you know.  Things happen for different reasons, and things, you know -- 'Why did I write that exact piece? Why did we feel the way about it we did when we made it?' I’m not sure.”

Obviously it's about grief but it's also connected in other ways.. I read you wrote it shortly after the death of your mother ... and then when you were finishing it was when, you were in the editing room and you had another health scare.  So it seems every step of the way there was something. 
I don't know.  I mean my life has been, I've had many, many extraordinary, very fortunate things happen, and it's also been many different things over the years, that have been challenging.  So that wasn't a particular time just when I wrote it.  I mean, if we look at it, I had my mastectomy right before I shot Unbroken.  Over the span of that decade, I did lose my mother,  I did have my mastectomy, and I did then have an ovarian cancer scare and have that surgery as well. And other things, of course, that happen in life that you go through.

It really depends, a piece of art can be something that can be healing or it can just be difficult.  I still don’t know.  I’m happy we did that film because we did explore something together, and whatever it was, maybe it didn’t solve certain things, but it did, we did communicate something that maybe needed to be communicated to each other.”

FTKMF come 2 years after that and I guess it traces back to that firs trip you took to Cambodia with Lara Croft.
When I was on that trip I picked up Luong's book and her book was really the 1st book that helped me to look at and understand what had happened.  It was the beginning of an education for me.

And how soon after did you actually connect with her cause I know you guys are very close now.
Soon.  Soon after I returned and when I started working on these issues I planned to go back to Cambodia with the UN and work with the demining groups as it turned out that she was working on the campaign to ban land mines and going to Cambodia also.  So we went together on mission, in fact, to work with these different groups together and became very fast friends.

So when along the line did you become a citizen of Cambodia, in addition to being a citizen of the U.S.
It was 2005.

How did that happen.
I had been working in country.  When Mad was about 1, the place that Luong and I went back together was Battambang which is up near Semlot which is near the Thai border.  It was the 1st and last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge, there's a lot of land mines.  And its where I decided to buy a small piece of land and start an organization to help many things:  we look after the Cardamon Mountains, we protect the forest from being deforested,  from demining, we have schools and clinics,  TB - AIDS clinic and just work with thousands of people there and have for 14 years.

And it's named after Maddox.
Maddox, Yes,

So why did that script stay in your desk drawer for as long as it did?
We were friends forever and never thought about making it into a movie until I directed Blood an Honey and I thought, 'I do love directing, what do I love?' And I loved her piece so I called her and said.'We should try to do this, what do you think?' And we did, and we finished it.  And we thought about what it would be like to do it, and we talked about how the country would feel, would the country be ready? It's very, very complicated to do this film in this country because it's not something people talk about.  Some people are still very much in denial.  The Tribunal had not come to the decisions it had made, only just a few years ago, at that time.  So there wasn't a guilty verdict yet, and the label of genocide in that official way, yet.  But most of all we looked at Mad, and said 'When Mad is ready, Mad has to do this with us.  Mad needs to know.'  Part of doing this is Mad is going to learn a lot about who he is and we can't do it without him.  So we told Mad about it, we talked to him.  He's known her his whole life, so he knows her story.  And we said, when you're ready, you're going to take it seriously when you're ready, and we'll all do it together.   So I did other things happened and then Mad came up to me and said 'I'm ready. I want you to make Luong's, I want to go back.

How old was he when he said that this to you?
14.

So I guess another partner that was required to do this, I believe they were in from the beginning with Uh hmm

The big consideration for a lot of filmmakers when it comes to Netflix is that maybe your film doesn't get a wide theatrical release but it is then available in all but 3 of 4 countries in the whole world.
Right.

Why did the latter trump the former for you?
As you mentioned I had done Blood and Honey.  I love foreign films.  Foreign films they tend to be very understood and embraced when they're good and when you do them right, in a country.  In the country itself.  But then globally, it's very hard.  It has a very particular audience.  It was so important to me that this film be really seen and understood because I wanted people to have that education that I didn't get.  I wanted this country to be understood.  I wanted it to be seen and the artists from the country to be seen and appreciated.  So it was that.  It was the global reach.  It's also true that in a lot of these countries there aren't a lot of movie theaters.  Cambodia, Siem Reap where we were in has 3, and nobody really goes.  So they weren't going even though we did put it in theaters there and we showed it, we screened outside and now we've been showing it in schools, but a lot of people see it this way.  See it more, a lot of people don't have access to theaters that some people do.  So it was very much the reason I went to Netflix first. 

You made several key decisions with this one that could have gone a different way:  to do it in Khmer, to shoot it in Cambodia, with locals.  Why did you decide that was central on this one.  How receptive was the government and the local people and all the folks who had to get on board for you to be able to do this.
We wanted Mad to be ready and that was one step, we needed the funding and the support, and I really wanted to work with Rithy Panh who's an extraordinary filmmaker, producer Cambodian.  But ten it was we won't do this if i was in any way going to be disruptive in country.  If in any way the country is not ready for it and it could have an imbalancing effect or do something.  Because that's more important than anything.  The victims and survivors, it's more important that they're OK.  When they're ready.  So we went in country and I go there often.  You kind of get a feeling.  We talked to a lot of people about doing this.  It's Luong's story but it really is to represent everyone.  And through the eyes of a child is a different way of helping people look at things because it comes without judgement and it come just a witness to things.  And to be interpreted and to put it front of people and to feel it in an emotional way and to show the love and beauty of the family.  So we focused on that.  And yes, I was very, very surprised that we had the government's support.  We had many.many meetings with Apsara, the people who work with the protection of the land, anything I could possibly learn about how to do this and how to do it right.  How to communicate with the local people because they're not used to this kind of films.

And reliving
And reliving.  The biggest concern was that we were going to bring back the Khmer Rouge and we were going to re-traumatize people.

Concern for whom?
For me, the producers, for all of us.  We just felt like this is not something tat is talked about a lot and now, and these people are not used to films.  So when you suddenly have a mass of Khmer Rouge soldiers and tanks  coming over that bridge, what is that going to do and how do we get everybody ready for that? How do we make it cathartic and not traumatic.  And so there was just a lot of communication.  A lot of community meetings. A lot of meetings with monks.  A lot of blessings.  A lot of prayer, a lot of stopping to talk.  We had a therapist in set every day.  We did it like a therapeutic communal exercise.

How did Luong feel about it.
She said something beautiful.  She said during the war everyone was alone, and this was everyone together.  Everyone over 40 remembers the war so everybody was either a child of somebody or they themselves, this was their life. So just everybody was holding each other, if there's an emotional scene you look around and everybody holding each other crying, talking, praying.  It was such a collective.  It was such a sharing, that I think it did do something quite special and I was very humbled to just be a part of it, to witness it.

This movie was unveiled at Telluride, that's where I was lucky enough to see it.  Got a huge response there, everywhere else since.  To be chosen by Cambodia for the Foreign Language race, what has that meant?
That means so much to me because it means that the country, like I said it's been a very, very long time, 40 years since the war to be able to acknowledge this part of the history, and to have something where people can come together and agree, and discuss.  And so for the country to put this forward and agree, come together and say that this represents a part of their history is an acknowledgement  and a step forward for the country just on what it symbolizes.  For me personally, I remember the day that I was nervous, asking Luong what she would feel if I adopted a child from Cambodia because I didn't know if Cambodian people would be offended if I was a mother to a Cambodian child.  So for me, to be allowed to be a part of their country, and then for that country to accept me as their own and be able to represent them is the greatest honor.

Last I heard you do something that's unusual in Hollywood, you don't have a manager, agent or publicist.  What's that about?
I have an agent.  Publicist, I never really got along with.  Had to have them for emergencies and it's never worked out. (laughs) So it's just, yeah, I mean I just,  I don't now. I really don't know. (laughs)

All four films you've done have been sort of darker subject matter, 3 of them about war.  Is that just solely attributable to your interest with the UN?  Humanitarian activity has brought you into that world as often as it has?  If you were to psychoanalyze why those are the movies you've chosen to direct.  What's that about?
I think any film is really a study about human nature, human behavior and obviously in war time, we come to the extremes,  Man's inhumanity to man, and our deepest humanity so it does these extremes that I'm interested in.  But every film in a way, they're all war but different stages of it.  It's almost like I'm trying to understand how we prevent war,how we get through war, how we survive a war.  Blood and Honey was this collapse under something and how it divides, Unbroken it rose up, for First They Killed it was so much they love of the family and how you can't take away the thing that can actually be the most beautiful thing can come through something so horrific, and to see it trough a child's.  They all have different things. 

Somebody told me once, and I probably shouldn't point this out, somebody says to you, 'Here's the thing you do as a director all the time, don't tell anybody. ' But I'll tell you.  Somebody said to me, 'Why is it in every one your films, there's always a scene between two people and one person drops to their knees and the other person is left standing.?'  Isn't that strange?  And it never dawned on me.  And it's in every single one of my films.  It's almost like, embarrassing, how it's like you can almost put them all next to each other.  And it's strange.  But I wonder if there's something to that.  That idea of something I've been always trying to find in life.   Like when you're up against something and you have to find what you stand for, and you have to fight for it.  And you have to, your will and your drive, and will you stay standing or will you fall.  Or will you accept that you're responsible and then will somebody step forward.  So something about that I am very drawn.

And all four have different cinematographers.
And all four have different cinematographers, yeah, all amazing. All amazing men.

Why should refugees and friends of refugees like yourself not despair at the Trump administration's very unwelcoming attitude towards refugees?
"I've been working on these issues for 16 years and I hope to wok on them until my last day.  And I hope my children work on them.  These things are bigger than all of us.  Me personally I believe things evolve.  We have to hope that even in our darkest times that, if we look back in history we've hit very, very dark times and we've come out stronger.  And we have to believe that is what our goal must be.  And sometimes things can crystallize something and then you understand even clearer what you need to fight for and why, and what you need to hold on to and why.  And so I think that can be, and maybe must be, the way people have to look at dark times.

These next few years, do you have any specific goals or challenges for yourself? What do you think the next few years hold for you? 
"Teenagers.

More directing or will you also act? Or are you done with acting?
No, I'd love to do a little bit more.  I think I'll enjoy acting more than I did before now that I'm older and I come at it differently.  I would love to direct again.  But very honestly I've spent the last year and a half doing nothing but really just being a Mom, and it's the most important thing for me to do.   So, I'll see what projects come, but I'll see how much I need to balance that with my kids right now.