Star on the heartache of her Bosnian War movie, In The Land Of Blood And Honey
Exhausted ... Angelina Jolie's directional debut pushed her to breaking point
Exclusive
By NICK FRANCIS
Published:
Today at 00:56
SHE has a reputation as the ice maiden of Hollywood ice maidens – and even
Angelina Jolie herself admits it takes a lot to make her cry.
But after directing her first film, a heartbreaking love story set against the
horror of the Bosnian War, she admits she has been pushed to emotional
breaking point.
In an exclusive interview, the 36-year-old actress tells how she
ended up weeping and exhausted in the arms of partner Brad Pitt after
spending months away from home filming In The Land Of Blood And Honey.
Confounding any rumours of a shaky home life for Brangelina, she says: "Brad
has stood by me every step of the way.
"He took charge of the kids while I was away filming and was always
encouraging me and telling me not to doubt myself.
"Just before I started doing Press for the film, I came home and started
crying in Brad's arms because all my doubts and fears suddenly resurfaced.
And I'm someone who very rarely cries."
The savagery of the war in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s is enough to
reduce anyone to emotional rubble.
Yet mum-of-six Angelina refuses to shy away from issues including rape,
torture and murder.
The film follows the doomed love between Bosnian Serb soldier Danijel and
Muslim Ajla.
Close ... Angelina turned to Brad for support after filming ended
During the war Ajla's people are subjected to mass genocide at the hands of
the Bosnian Serb army, who round them up into camps for slaughter.
Ajla arrives at a prison camp to find it being run by Danijel, by now her
former boyfriend. It is the first time they have seen each other since the
war started.
Not only did Angelina direct the harrowing tale, she also wrote it, after
spending months visiting war-torn regions across the globe.
She says: "It was my work on behalf of the UN and travelling to different war
zones that brought me to this story.
"The more I read and researched about the former Yugoslavia, the more I was
emotionally affected. I was actually ashamed of myself for knowing very
little.
Behind the camera ... Angelina directs cast on set of In The Land Of Blood And Honey
AP
"I was 17 when the conflict started. I didn't realise how much I didn't know.
This was a war of my generation and writing the screenplay was my way of
learning about the Bosnian War and what transpired.
"It also made me ask questions which maybe can't be answered or explained —
how can man be so primal? How can there be such violence against women?
"How can the international community turn its back and allow these atrocities?
"How can you make any sense of a conflict where people wind up raping and
killing their neighbours who have lived with each other, married each other
and shared so much history together?"
Despite a modest budget of £8million, In The Land Of Blood And Honey is
already being showered with praise. A UK release date is yet to be
announced.
For a directorial debut it's a great effort, although Angelina is still
nervous and says: "It's been one of the best and most trying experiences of
my life. I spent many sleepless nights preparing then directing the film.
A tale of despair ... Zana Marjanovic as Ajla and Boris Ler as Tarik in a scene from movie
"Even now, when I've been promoting the film, I worry that perhaps I didn't do
a good enough job and do justice to the suffering that the Bosnian people
endured in the war."
Although the subject matter is pretty adult to say the least, all six of
Angelina's children were allowed on set to watch Mum at work.
She says: "They went to school in Hungary and came to visit the set there
after school. Most of the time they had to stay out. They liked to play with
the fake snow.
"There were many days when they could never really come because there were
scenes that were not appropriate for children.
"It was so dark and hard that any time you called 'cut', or we had a break,
everybody was playing together.
"The cast would come out and play soccer with my kids. We would all laugh and
try anything that brought levity and love because it was so dark. Off the
set, I was happily with my kids. I was probably smothering them with love
because of the nature of the subject matter."
It is her hands-on experience looking after her hefty brood — Pax, Zahara,
Maddox, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne — which armed her with the skills for
running a high-pressure film set.
Conflict ... a father cradles his child as he runs from sniper attacks in Sarajevo, 1993
Angelina says: "There's people constantly asking you for something on set, so
the multi-tasking of motherhood transfers very well to being a director. And
I think you're compassionate.
"I get nervous. I see my actors get dressed up for a premiere and think, 'Oh,
did she get the right earrings?' or 'Did he get anything to eat before he
went to the interview?'
"With all these other adults, you still feel this strange, nurturing,
mothering quality for everybody."
After years at the top of her game, Angelina's acting career is now slowing
down.
She admits her turbulent teenage years became her motivation to master
different screen roles — but today she feels much more at peace.
She says: "I had grown up as a pretty scary teenager who was self-destructive
and who didn't have a good outlook on life. Acting gave me a better place to
be but early in my career I still didn't appreciate what the world offered
me, or have a good idea of who I was and what I wanted from life.
Jolie happy ... Brad and Angelina with, from left, Zahara, Pax, Maddox, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox
Barcroft Media
"I had a pretty warped perception of the world. I grew up as this very
carefree, happy kid then things turned darker for me. Maybe it was because I
saw that the world wasn't as happy a place as I had hoped it would be for
me.
"I'm just glad I was able to return to some of that innocence and beauty I had
as a child when I started my own family, and my children brought me back
some of that spirit."
There's no doubting family life has taken a lead role in recent years,
although Angelina is scheduled to play the main character in Cleopatra, the
upcoming remake of the 1963 film that starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard
Burton.
She says: "First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have
so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that
nothing really compares to that.
The facts: Bosnian War
The Bosnian War broke out in April 1992.
Serbs, Muslims and Croats fought over whether Bosnia should stay
in the Yugoslav Federation or become independent.
It raged for more than three years, until December 1995.
By its end around 100,000 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina were
dead. Millions were homeless.
The worst atrocity was the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and
boys by Bosnian Serb forces who overran the town of Srebrenica in July 1995.
"We have our work, of course, but I tend to think of my acting career as a
small part of my life, and I want to spend more time with my family, as well
as travelling the world on behalf of the United Nations.
"Acting is just not as urgent or necessary for me any more. I needed acting
earlier in my life because it was very therapeutic for me.
"Then I changed my outlook on myself and my life. Now it's something I still
enjoy but it's just not as important as it used to be.
"When you have a big family you just give up your personal life at a certain
point.
"You even try to take a bath and everybody comes in, so you give up, and
that's OK.
"As somebody who likes to be alone, I surprise myself that I'm very happy to
be surrounded by everybody in my family.
"I feel that comfort."
n.francis@the-sun.co.uk
February 2, 2012 at 1:00 am
-
By Angela Dawson
- Entertainment News Wire
The first person to whom Jolie showed her script was Pitt, her partner and father of their six children.
"He
said it was pretty good," she says with a smile. "We talked further
about it, and he encouraged me throughout the whole process.
"If he would have said anything negative, we wouldn't be here talking about this today."
The first person to whom Jolie showed her script was Pitt, her partner and father of their six children.
"He
said it was pretty good," she says with a smile. "We talked further
about it, and he encouraged me throughout the whole process.
"If he would have said anything negative, we wouldn't be here talking about this today."
Projects: Ridley Scott - Gertrude Bell News
It seems Jeffrey Caine's script for
Gertrude Bell isn't ready yet and Ridley Scott may do
The Counselor after
Proetheus. If that happens, he won't be able to do Bell until at least mid-2013.
Maleficent - March to June possible
12 Years A Slave - June
Luc Besson - July to Sept or could switch with
Maleficent
Salt 2 - ?
Cleopatra - if FIncher doesn't do 20K could be as early late 2012, otherwise mid 2013 or later
Gertrude Bell - mid to late 2013
Company Men
17 dossiers stolen from the Central Intelligence Agency.
17 dossiers on the people who've shaped the Agency into the den of
assassins and killer pencil pushers it is today, the ones involved in
every major operation: takedowns in Mexico, dolphin experimentation,
malt liquor conspiracies and so on. This is the Agency's most prized
list and now it's fallen into the wrong hands: Yours.
We lost a few guys in this operation. So commit these to memory, then burn after reading.
NAME: Salt, Evelyn
LAST KNOWN WHEREABOUTS: Salt (2010), alias Angelina Jolie.
HISTORY: Crack Agency agent trained in Soviet Russia.
Accused of being an enemy spy. Went on the run to clear her name and
save her life.
STATUS: ROGUE.
Overall Threat Level: Low on the female action hero plausibility scale. Scored pretty high on the Hubbard Electrometer, though.
