Showing posts with label THR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label THR. Show all posts

Sunday, January 5, 2025

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Friday, January 3, 2025






“Who Am I When I’m Not Working?”: Angelina Jolie, Demi Moore, Zendaya and the Actress Roundtable
Zoe Saldaña, Tilda Swinton and Mikey Madison also discuss baring it all onscreen, how they’ve never met each other (“It’s quite strange”), and bonding over Moore’s ‘Ghost’ past.

By Rebecca Keegan January 3, 2025

It was, as Tilda Swinton would say — gazing across the table one Saturday afternoon in November at the Soho House’s Luckman Club in West Hollywood — a room of “scorching glamour.” Amid the heat of all that charisma, there were three cute canines sniffing around: Zendaya’s mini black schnauzer, Noon; Demi Moore’s micro chihuahua, Pilaf; and Mikey Madison’s chihuahua puppy, Jam. The occasion for the gathering of Oscar frontrunners and the dogs who love them was THR’s annual Actress Roundtable, which this year convened Angelina Jolie (Maria), Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez), Madison (Anora), Moore (The Substance), Swinton (The Room Next Door) and Zendaya (Dune: Part Two and Challengers) for a conversation on surviving and thriving in modern Hollywood. “A lot of women in the past didn’t have this table,” Jolie pointed out of the sometimes lonely life of being a woman in the arts. “They didn’t have community in this way.”

Who here has ever signed on for a role that you were really excited about and then gone home and thought, “What have I just done?”

ZOE SALDAÑA More often than not. The series that I’m doing right now, Lioness, is a show that’s very dialogue heavy. I wanted to challenge myself and address my dyslexia and my anxiety by taking on a character who was really commanding with a lot of dialogue. The moment I said yes, I went home and looked at my partner and was like, “I don’t think I can do this.” Then, obviously, the next day was just, roll your sleeves up and create all the tools that you need to get there.

TILDA SWINTON The second film that I made, I was in every shot of it. I remember going home after one night’s shooting and lying in the bath and trying to plan how I would break into the British Film Institute, which was making the film, to seize the dailies and destroy them. I knew Rathbone Place, which is the street in London. I was figuring there’d be a night watchman. What could I do to distract him? I was really going down that line. I just couldn’t imagine that any film where I was going to be in every frame was going to be anything other than unbearable. Whenever I see a film that I’m in, for the first few times I see it, my face is kind of fuzzed out, like, on those police videos, you know? And then slowly, like the third screening, I’ll go, “Oh yeah, it’s you.” Does anybody relate to that?

DEMI MOORE The first few times watching it through, it’s always a little bit of the dissecting of what you’ve done, what you could have done — and then step back and be able to really take in the whole, let go of your ego attachment to what other people think. But even now, can you watch yourself? I cannot watch myself.

ANGELINA JOLIE I really have trouble watching myself, too. There are many films I’ve never seen. I can never watch dailies.

SWINTON There are films you haven’t seen? Wow. That must be very tantalizing. I’d be tempted.

JOLIE No, because I … I think we all probably have discomfort with the presentation of self. As much as I love the work, I don’t want to think about what I look or sound like or else I don’t know if I’d be as free. Once it’s over, I do want an audience to connect, but there’s nothing I can do.

ZENDAYA I’m a very self-conscious person. Everything I do, I’m very self-critical. And I find that being on a set is one of the few places that I don’t judge myself. I can just be super free. Because I’m like, “Wait, it’s not me.” So I don’t mind watching myself. I don’t actually ever get weird about it until I go, “Oh, people are going to see this.” Once it’s time to promote something, I’m like, “Oh, now I’m self-conscious about the work that I just made.” But up until this point, I was just in my little bubble of creative freedom. It’s not until you realize, “This won’t belong to just me forever,” that my head starts going.

MOORE That’s a very evolved place to be. I’m going to just take that little gem.

SWINTON But what you are speaking to is when you look at yourself on a monitor, it’s just not you, it’s not yours because it is the light. It’s the makeup. It’s the costume. It’s the design. I remember once, years and years ago, the second film when I was in every frame, I remember in week 10 thinking, “I want a little bit of praise. Where am I going to get it from?” But I was too proud to ask anybody for it. I thought, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll ask the editor, I’ll ask him which is his favorite shot in the movie so far, because I know I’m in 99 percent of it, so surely.” And so I went to the editor and said, “What’s your favorite shot?” He said, “Oh, that’s really hard. Hmm.” He finally said, “Yeah, I think I’ve got it. It’s this close-up of you. I don’t know how he did it.” And it was genius. It cured me in that moment. I thought, “Yeah, how did the cinematographer do that? How did the cinematographer frame it and light it?” Correct. Not actually much to do with me at all. So I never asked for any praise ever again. And that’s what you are speaking to. Because you look in the monitor and you go, “Well done, everybody.” You are in there somewhere, but it’s not just you.

ZENDAYA Absolutely, you truly are an amalgamation of all these genius people’s ideas. That’s what we were just talking about (gestures at Jolie) with directing, because I would love to direct one day and you’ve been able to do it — and in a beautiful way. Something that makes me so nervous is [directing], and [Jolie, before] was like, “But there are people to help you.” There are these gorgeous teams of people that we get to work with that create just as much as we do, the characters that we play.

Mikey, when I think about having a lack of self-consciousness on set, I think about the opening scene in Anora where you’re in this nightclub, and as I understand it, there was not a lot of direction in the script. You were just told to go up and approach potential customers. What was that like?

MIKEY MADISON All of that is improvised. [Director] Sean [Baker] created an entirely live set. So there’s music blasting, a DJ playing. There’s my co-workers all over the club, men everywhere. And Sean shot it on a long lens. He was in the corner of the club, and he would just follow me around picking up men, talking to my co-workers, trying to get guys to come to the back room and get a dance with me. There was a lot of pressure on me to get to a place where I completely understood everything about my character and also the dynamics between a dancer and a client. So I did a lot of research going into that, shadowing dancers at clubs, talking to consultants. We shot three rolls of film, 30 minutes straight of that and then whittled it down to a couple minutes of the film, which is the introduction into Ani and who she is.

What was the most useful thing that a dancer told you about what that life was like?

MADISON Oh my God, everything. Just understanding how psychological of a job it is to be a sex worker. It’s not only physically demanding, but it’s mentally demanding as well, because you’re having to walk up to someone and immediately try to connect with them. And then physically, you’re on your feet all day, dancing in these really tall stilettos. Just understanding the stamina that comes with that. Being able to get to know the sex work community has been one of the most impactful things that’s ever happened to me. I have so much respect for what they do. Ani would’ve been a completely different character if I hadn’t done any of that preparation.

Zoe, what was it like for you to get back to dance in Emilia Pérez, which is how you began in this industry?

SALDAÑA It was a true gift. I was given the opportunity to reconnect with parts of me that unconsciously I just left behind. As a New Yorker, you’re born with jazz hands, and then you spend your whole life un-jazzing your hands. I remember being a child and walking by Lincoln Center and [my grandmother] would go, “Look, look, look,” while she was smoking her cigarette, like, “One day, one day you’re going to be there.” And I remember thinking like, “What is she saying?” And then it’s very beautiful when things come full circle. But I do believe that you have to find a way to manifest them.

How exactly did you manifest this?

SALDAÑA By really wanting it. I fell into this pattern of being on autopilot constantly. I was a part of really successful films that became franchises, and I have no regrets. They gave me so much. But they’re very time-consuming. And this is all happening while I’m starting a family. So that desire to grow, to shatter whatever glass ceiling I felt like I was falling under, was growing more and more as the years went by. I wrote a list with my team a couple of years before booking Emilia Pérez. I said, “These are the top five directors that I would love to work with.” Jacques [Audiard] was in the top three. Dancing and singing, that was the icing on the cake.

Angelina, what did you learn about yourself from singing as Maria Callas?

JOLIE Oh, so much. I had someone in my life say that I couldn’t sing. I didn’t realize how much that had blocked me. I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know my voice. I didn’t understand how much life changes your voice, whether it be childbirth or death, or someone you love, or sickness or whatever it may be. But we hold things in our body. We change the way we are. And somewhere along the way ­— I’m 49 years old — I lost my voice. So it was such a gift to have these seven months [of training], to have someone hold my hand and help me take a deep breath and try to make sound again. If you haven’t tried to sing opera, I recommend it to everyone, because it’s the only thing I’ve ever done where you use your full physical body, your full vocal, and your full emotion. And we, especially as women, are very rarely allowed, asked, encouraged to give with our full power. We are adjusting to the room, to our children, to society. Something along the way forms us, and we don’t bust out with everything. Maria Callas is one of us. She was a woman and spent a lot of time in her process alone. Which is why this is so lovely, sitting here, thinking of her and realizing she didn’t have this table. A lot of women in the past didn’t have this table. There weren’t as many women doing certain things, and they didn’t have community in this way. I was surprised when I got here today. So many of us have been aware of each other. We’ve never met. It’s quite strange.

MOORE We don’t have many opportunities to connect in the form of community and reflect as artists. It can be a bit of an isolating experience.

SALDAÑA You are encouraged to be isolated, right? It used to be that notion that you needed to always stay hyper-focused on your journey and not seek support. Or not lend support.

SWINTON It’s such a mirage, because it’s not real. I mean, we all know how important our women friends are to us. It’s everything. Men give the impression that they don’t have the same kind of collective feel together. That’s their affair. And they have to figure it out, if it’s true. It’s probably not true, but there is a strange kind of myth around it. But this is a beautiful table, the glamour at this table ­— except for me. But this must be encouraged, to just shoot the breeze as women. And also this whole idea that women don’t make movies. I mean, as we all know, women have been making films as directors since the very beginning of cinema. Lois Weber was the very first director in 1904 or something. That’s the reality. But there’s a strange sort of mesmerism around it. We’re all supposed to forget it. And also, we’re all supposed to be pitched against each other.

MOORE That’s the thing ­— it isn’t a competition. That’s been the illusion, versus when one rises, we all rise. And that when we walk the path, not alone, we also expand exponentially.

SWINTON The whole idea that there’s only room for one may suit men better, or the society of men better, but I don’t think it suits women. I think we know how to do this. This is what we do. Yes. You know, we sit around tables and we chat and we support each other, and we witness each other.

Demi, The Substance is about the way women criticize our bodies. What drew you to that?

MOORE The script was such an interesting, out-of-the-box read, the way in which it was exploring the issue of aging. The thing that grabbed me was the exploration of the violence we can have against ourselves, that way in which we can dissect and criticize. I have found, at least in my own experience in life, that it’s really not what anyone else has ever done to me. The impact has always been on what I do to myself, internalized.

SWINTON The going-out scene [as the character, a middle-aged woman, scrutinizing herself]. Oh my Lord.

SALDAÑA It was such an intimate and raw portrayal of what we can do to ourselves, how we commit self-harm on a daily basis, sometimes without even touching our bodies. Even in the way that you were looking at yourself, you were so self-critical. And I just, I felt it.

MOORE The other thing as an actor that I’ve never explored is, my scenes were almost all alone. And I have no dialogue. So everything was the kind of odd, intimate moments we have with ourselves, where we are often naked, looking, dissecting, thinking. It was a really interesting challenge to create a full life for her, because I didn’t have someone else to feed off of. It was also very technical. A lot of times the technical aspects take priority over the sensitivity of an actor’s process. But it was so relatable. It was an important message that needed to come across for us to all start to reevaluate how we’re holding ourselves. I’ve had a lot of conversations, having three daughters. My middle daughter said at one point, “I want to quit wasting time focusing on all that I’m not, when I could be celebrating all that I am.” First of all, I said, “Maybe I’ve done a good job,” but also, that is it.

If women do this to ourselves, how do we break out of it?

MOORE It’s ultimately about self-acceptance. It’s about appreciating who we are, as we are right now. That involves how we evolve. It isn’t the same reflection in the mirror. As one woman said, she’s just more loosely wrapped. Would I trade being more “tightly wrapped” for the wisdom that I’ve gained and who I’ve become as a woman today? I don’t think I would — at the same time, appreciating all of the different parts of me that have brought me to where I am today, embracing the shadow sides. When we can look at our triumphs that have come through our obstacles, our failures, we can see them as an opportunity for growth and a win.

Zendaya, we’re used to seeing you play a kid, a teenager. In Challengers, for a good portion of the movie, you’re playing a grown woman. How was that different for you?

ZENDAYA For so long I was playing a teenager, way past when I was one. Being able to play Rue [on HBO’s Euphoria] has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. But there comes a time where you’ve got to start playing your own age and beyond. And it was a scary thing. Challengers was my first time in a leading lady role and being a part of the producing aspect. It was all very exciting and also daunting. But when you read certain characters, you’re like, “I just can’t pass up the opportunity to play this woman.” She was refreshing to me. She doesn’t apologize for her need for control as her life is falling apart or for vicariously having to live through other people. It spoke to me because I love my job so much. I’m so grateful that I get to do this for a living. And I think, “What if it was all taken away?” Her true love was tennis. And it gets snatched from her so quickly. She doesn’t know who she is anymore without this thing. And that’s something in my own life — I’ve been working since I was a kid, and I was like, “Wait, who am I when I’m not working? Do I have a life? What do I even like to do? What are my hobbies? Like, who is Zendaya outside of this?”

SALDAÑA One thing in your character that resonated with me, it’s emotions that we suppress that we never like to admit that we feel. Your character felt so much jealousy that these men, in her mind, were so undeserving of this gift, of this talent. It was just amazing to see a woman be equal to a man when it comes to aptitude, talent, wit. Her competition wasn’t other women. It was the partners in her life.

ZENDAYA Her boys. And it was exploring parts of a life that I haven’t lived yet, having kids or getting married. I also think back to a bigger conversation of not ever allowing women the space to grieve. She just immediately pivots and she’s like, “OK, new plan.” Allowing ourselves moments to be a person. We don’t have to hold it all together.

SWINTON That’s our humanness. It’s about a relationship with success. The whole idea of success being the holy grail, that you are going for whatever that means. For a sports person, it means something very, very clear. And everything else takes second or third or fourth place. Where does the living happen? It’s easier for us as artists, because we need our lives. Otherwise, we can’t make our work.

MOORE It’s also that question of identity. Like, “Who am I without?” Because what we do isn’t actually who we are. But that takes time to find within yourself. The early part of life, you’re just striving to see what you can do. If you find enough of it, it’s then having to separate and live and have more of a balance in your existence. And when you’ve lived long enough, you’ve made some mistakes. You’ve had some failures and survived them. That’s the most amazing teaching tool. Survival. And then it gets better and better and better, as we know.

So, do you feel like you’ve figured out what your hobbies are and who you are when you’re not working?

ZENDAYA Next question. (Laughs.) It’s a thing that I’m figuring out. What other than work brings me joy? For me, it’s been about trying new things, as stupid as it sounds, like pottery or anything with your hands. I can make a good scone now, you know? It’s just trying to discover what my life is outside of the presentation of who I am.

SWINTON Well, you’ve worked from when you were a child, which most of us have not had that experience. When did you start working, Mikey?

MADISON I was about 16, almost 16.

SWINTON Pretty young still, isn’t it? I take my hat off to both of you. It’s quite an achievement to work as young people. It’s hard enough when you are older. The rest of us, we were climbing trees and not making any money.

ZENDAYA I have a complicated relationship with the idea of child acting because I’ve seen it be detrimental to people. I’m so grateful that this is how it turned out. I wouldn’t change it, but there are things that I wish I lived out privately, you know? Because you’re figuring out who you are in front of the world. And you’re like, “I’m trying to do this right. I want to make everyone happy, but I don’t really know who I am yet. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

SWINTON I’m excited for you finding your fabulous life.

ZENDAYA Thank you. Pottery and scones. But I appreciate being able to have moments like this, because I feel like at least now the connections are made. I can reach out and ask questions, because all of you have such experience and that’s so valuable. Often I feel too nervous to reach out and be like, “Hey, can I get some advice?”

MOORE In truth, it’s a real gift to feel like there’s any kind of experience, strength and hope that you have, that you could impart to someone. That actually is enriching. So reach out.

ZENDAYA Oh, I will. I’m getting everybody’s contact information after this.

SWINTON I’ll help you set up the bakery.

MOORE And I can help you with the pottery.

ZENDAYA (Laughs.) I just got that. That’s so funny. We actually did that in Euphoria. We reenacted [the pottery scene in Ghost].

MOORE Oh, you did? Oh my God. Actually, I was a disaster with the pottery. Mine literally looked like kindergartner pots.

SWINTON Oh my God, Demi, Ghost, Ghost!

SALDAÑA I just got it, too.

Tilda, Pedro Almodóvar works fast. He’s a one or two takes kind of guy. In The Room Next Door, you have some long monologues. Were you doing things in one or two takes or did you ask him for more?

SWINTON Both. There was begging. But he seems to know what he wants. And I was nervous about that. I was nervous that he was going too fast for us to have an opportunity to squeeze the orange every which way, which I love to do. I worked with David Fincher, who, you know, the legend is that he’ll go a hundred takes. And I happen to love that, too. Because then you know you’ve done it. It’s all there.

Does anyone here ever ask for another take?

MADISON Definitely. On [Anora], there would be times where we’d be stealing shots. We’d bring this film camera into restaurants, clubs, to a pool hall, just filming on the street and trying to steal things. And sometimes you don’t feel like you got it. So it’s like, “Let’s just go in one more time,” but you can’t. And then obviously our film being such a small budget, there were days where we’re just jam-packing scenes, trying to get things done. And I’m like, “Wait, I just need something more.” But watching it back, what we did end up getting was just right in the moment, because the film is so hectic and frenetic. As an actress, you’re trying to make sure that you got it. And it’s not possible. There’s no such thing.

SWINTON It’s not possible. For me, anyway, this is possibly the most difficult part of the work, letting things go, moving on and having the discipline to just go, “Do you know what? I didn’t think I got it, but getting it is impossible. And what do I know, anyway?” Because very often, we think we got it. And you can speak to this, Angelina, as a director, that the performer thinks it’s been nailed. But actually, that’s the overshot one. And the one that felt a little rickety and there was some kind of weird energy around it, that’s the golden thing. But you can’t necessarily feel that inside. That’s why a director can say, “Trust me, we got it. We’re moving on.” And you have to go, “OK, I trust you.” It’s a feat of faith.

Angelina, how does having directed shape the way you work as an actor?

JOLIE I was always an actress that loved the crew and understood I was a piece of a whole. But after being a director, you are much more aware of all the pieces and all the needs, and you are very conscious that an actor is important, but a piece. I found casting very interesting, as an actor. You may be looking for something, it’s not some perfect presentation or some perfect reading. It’s someone who has something behind those eyes, someone who’s a little messy, someone who’s a little brave. A lot of what makes an interesting actor is an interesting person. The actors, I push them and I root for them.

Demi, in The Substance, you don all these prosthetics and become this creature. How was the process of putting all that on and acting through it?

MOORE It’s not like you have practice time with everything on. You’re finding it, in some respects, on the day. The time for me in the chair was anywhere from six to nine and a half hours, which is a lot. But — and you also must know this, too, Zoe — it’s a much easier read on paper than the physical act of being in there. I also think the time in the chair is helpful if you can get very still, very Zen. It was a slow progression over that time. You can’t really eat or drink because it’s so delicate. Things will fall apart. And probably the most challenging is having somebody touch you constantly all the time.

SWINTON But taking it off is the really hard part, isn’t it?

SALDAÑA No, it’s actually much quicker. You open a bottle of wine, put Sam Cooke on.

MOORE I will say, [The Substance] director Coralie [Fargeat] loved to do many, many takes. The scene of wiping the makeup off my face, each section was 15 takes at least. And I could have used a few less.

Zendaya, Dune: Part Two is this epic sci-fi movie, but it’s built upon a romance. How did you figure out how you were going to flirt in space?

ZENDAYA There was one scene that we could only shoot for like an hour a day, because of the sun. So you’re like, “OK, we were here yesterday, but how do we get back into that, the tenderness and finding these moments?” In the beginning, Denis [Villeneuve] would say, “I’m going to do a glances pass. Just look at each other from across the room.” I find that there is so much you can do without words. Just a glance between the two of them built this love story and made you believe it. I just felt very lucky to be a part of it. From the beginning, I was just like, “I’ll play a tree, the sand worm. What do you need? This is just so cool. I just want to be there.”

How much does what’s going on geopolitically in the world affect your choice of projects?

SALDAÑA It’s totally separate. Very early on in my career, I felt a couple of times at these self-made crossroads where, being a daughter of immigrants and being Latina in America, you carry this responsibility to represent your community. And I stopped that. I made that choice. I hoped it would help my community, by me following my heart and growing as an artist, as opposed to trying to take on these social causes. Because I would feel really overwhelmed. And when you do connect with people from your community, then you’re able to look at them and say, “Follow your heart.” That’s how you are going to help your community, by helping yourself.

Tilda, I want to end by sharing something you said in an interview. You were talking about your friendship with Almodóvar. You said you met at a Hollywood party where you bonded over feeling like outsiders, that you were “both shy and tickled pink and pinching ourselves, but not confident enough to step in and talk to, say, Angelina Jolie.”

SWINTON She was there. We had Liza Minnelli over here and we had Sacha Baron Cohen over there and Angie was there. And both Pedro and I were scorched with the glamour of it. We just couldn’t believe that we were present.

JOLIE And I was probably ­— because I never go out — really alone and not sure anybody wanted to talk to me. And probably I would’ve been so happy had they said hello.

SWINTON And this is the truth of human animals: We’re all shy.

This story appeared in the Jan. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine

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Monday, December 9, 2024






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Wednesday, November 2, 2022



A majority of U.S. adults surveyed in a THR/Morning Consult poll still have a favorable perception of the actor — but some opinions changed when informed of the specific claims of the lawsuit.

BY MIA GALUPPO, NOVEMBER 2, 2022 6:40AM

As Paramount gears up for the December launch of Babylon, its big-budget prestige swing, the studio has to contest with headlines about its leading man, Brad Pitt. Instead of chatter about the star’s first awards hopeful since he won an Oscar for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the actor is facing accusations about a 2016 altercation on an airplane involving then-wife Angelina Jolie that have come to light amid a legal dispute over the French winery Château Miraval, which they had owned together.

A countersuit filed Oct. 4 by Jolie detailed the incident on a private plane during which Jolie says Pitt abused her and some of their children. The FBI launched an investigation over the incident in 2016 but declined to press charges, while a rep for Pitt stated that Jolie “continues to rehash, revise and reimagine” the altercation.

According to a THR/Morning Consult survey conducted Oct. 15 to 16 among a nationally representative sample of 2,211 adults in the U.S., the claims have not significantly damaged Pitt’s public image. There was, however, a slight change in opinion when respondents were informed of the claims. When first asked about whether respondents had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Pitt, 70 percent answered either “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable.” When asked a second time, after being prompted in the Morning Consult survey about Jolie’s abuse allegations directed toward Pitt, that combined number slipped to 65 percent.

Fewer women reported interest in seeing a film starring the actor compared with men, with 49 percent of women saying they were “somewhat” or “very” interested in seeing a film starring Pitt, compared with 56 percent of men. Breaking down responses by age, two-thirds of those 35-to-44 (66 percent) said they were “somewhat” or “very” interested in seeing a film starring Pitt, compared with 54 percent of those 18-to-34 and 50 percent of 45-to-64.

The perception of older audiences is important, considering the demo was seen as a driver behind the success of Pitt’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ($142 million domestic) and Bullet Train ($103 million domestic).

Paramount recently scheduled Babylon — which also stars Margot Robbie and has a run time of about three hours and an expected R rating — for a Dec. 23 wide release, moving it up from a Christmas Day limited release with a January expansion. It will now share theaters with Avatar: The Way of Water, which opens wide Dec. 16, and the animated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody, both out Dec. 21.

Insiders note Pitt remains a consistently bankable movie star and a direct path to a guaranteed green light, and the lawsuit and subsequent allegations will not change that. Still, the claims remain a more immediate “PR nightmare,” as one executive put it, that will likely lead to Pitt not being a major presence on the Babylon press tour. “You think Paramount is thrilled? No,” says one rival studio executive. “It could make press [for Pitt] hard, but the town will rally around Brad.”

THR/MORNING CONSULT


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Sunday, January 21, 2018


THR Directors Roundtable








In the Fade which was a surprise winner at the Globes and Critics Choice, was not nominated.  It had a far lower RT score (66) than the rest.








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Sunday, December 24, 2017



THR Directors Roundtable



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Friday, December 8, 2017



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' 

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



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Wednesday, December 6, 2017











THR Women in Entertainment

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Angelina Jolie
Actor, director, producer

CATEGORY Power Squad

Just a year ago, things were looking pretty bleak for Jolie. She was breaking free of the second-most-scrutinized marriage in Hollywood history (Liz Taylor and Richard Burton's still ranks first) and recuperating from the critical and box-office disaster of her third directing endeavor, 2015's By the Sea, which made a humble $3.3 million worldwide. The only high-profile project she had in the works was a remake of Bride of Frankenstein, which was fast vanishing into Universal's Monsterverse swamp.

How quickly things change. With Netflix's First They Killed My Father, the actress turned filmmaker has again proved her directing chops, giving the lie to naysayers who groused that only clever editing by Universal saved her 2014 war drama Unbroken (it earned $163 million worldwide, along with three Oscar nominations). The story of a young girl growing up under the genocidal Khmer Rouge, First was shot for $22 million (a chunk of that from Jolie's pocket) and is Cambodia's entry for the best foreign-language picture Oscar. "Everybody came forward [to rally around] this idea," says Jolie, who also served as executive producer on animated feature contender The Breadwinner. With a sequel to her Disney blockbuster Maleficent in the works, she remains a quadruple threat as writer-director-producer-star while also serving as a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, overseeing a staff of dozens in Cambodia to help land mine victims and others, and supporting numerous causes. Says Jolie, "I like the tough days."


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Monday, December 4, 2017






THR Awards Chatter

By


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. 




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