Skip Intro with Krista Smith

Skip Intro with Krista Smith is an award-winning weekly show bringing you dynamic conversations with the exceptional people behind your favorite shows, films, specials, and documentaries on Netflix.

Angelina Jolie joins the show to talk about playing the title role in Pablo Larraín's latest film, Maria. The film tells the tumultuous and beautiful story of the world’s greatest female opera singer, Maria Callas, re-lived and reimagined during her final days in 1970s Paris. Jolie explains how she got involved with the film, dives into the intense preparation process (which required her to learn how to sing opera so her voice could be properly blended with Callas), and walks us through how the costume design process helped her find the private version of Maria that existed behind closed doors.

She also shares her unique connection with the extras who played the audience during her La Scala opera scene, describes her relationship with co-stars Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher (who play Maria's butler, Ferruccio and her housemaid, Bruna), and breaks down a few of the film's most challenging scenes.

Transcript

You're listening to Skip Intro with me, Krista Smith. Angelina Jolie's career began to simmer throughout the early and mid 90s, before igniting in 1998 with the HBO biopic, Gia, earning her a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the late model, Gia Carrangi. The following year, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as the sociopathic young woman named Lisa in Girl Interrupted.

From there, Angelina rose to worldwide fame as Laura Croft in the Tomb Raider franchise, and over the years has starred in films like Changeling, Maleficent, Salt, and Marvel's Eternals. She has also directed five feature films, the latest of which, Without Blood, premiered this fall at the Toronto Film Festival. Both inside and outside of Hollywood, Angelina has consistently used her voice to illuminate important issues and is regarded internationally as a dedicated humanitarian.”

Throughout the past two decades, her philanthropy and activism has been recognized by the United Nations, Queen Elizabeth II, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is also the founder of Atelier Jolie, located at the famous 57 Great Jones Street in New York City, which is a hub for artists empowering people to participate in creating their own fashion with a focus on sustainability. Today we're talking about her role in Pablo Larraín's latest film, Maria, which tells the tumultuous, beautiful story of the famous opera singer Maria Callas.

Relived and reimagined during her final week in 1970s Paris. It's a tremendous performance from Angelina, who learned to sing opera in addition to balancing the emotional and physical transformation that the role required. Angelina joined me in the Skip Intro studio to discuss the film and her experience playing La Divina.”

Angelina Jolie, great to see you. I want to just start by saying I was in Telluride when Maria premiered. It was just amazing to sit in that theater and to just feel the excitement of the audience and knowing that you were there.

Everyone was just like, ah! And so much enthusiasm for this film. And obviously Pablo Larraín is beloved filmmaker.

It's just a great combination. And to see it in Telluride, I thought, was the perfect place. I wasn't in Venice, obviously.

But tell me for you, how was that going from Venice to Telluride? They're two distinctly different film festivals.

“Yes, they're very different. They're very different. But in a way, it was very interesting because there's so many different aspects to this.

She's an artist. It's a piece of work, but it's a piece of work about an artist and her work. And so it's interesting because the relationship she has to Europe and Venice in particular, but to Europe and that opera has feels different, of course.

And I'm sure she felt that way when she performed for different audiences. Because you have a different relationship. So it was wonderful to be in Venice”

“It felt a certain part of her was very present there, and a certain part of the work was very understood there. And then it was beautiful to be in Telluride, because to bring it to a festival that is so focused on the craft and so warm. And I felt this other part of her was very present there, and her life and her work and her humanity.

“So it was a very nice balance, actually.

So I had heard that Pablo had reached out to you even before any script was written about playing Maria. What do you remember about that first conversation with him and then with yourself that you had about taking this part on?”

“Well, Pablo and I had met many years ago, and I loved his work, and we just talked about one day finding something. So I was very happy to know that he was calling and that there was something to discuss. I think anytime you're asked to play a real person, you take pause no matter how big or known or not unknown the life is, because it's a person and you have to feel that you're ready to do your best to bring justice to this person's life and take that on.

“I was definitely taken aback because I don't sing or didn't sing. I knew of her and I knew her music, but I didn't fully know her, and so as I thought about it and read up on her and heard how Pablo saw her, I understood more who this woman was and then I started to find our connection.

It's got to be so great for an artist to want to work with a filmmaker and then the phone rings and then it's Maria.

“Oh my goodness. It's a dream.

It's a dream, right? Then there's that thing of a conversation where we can do everything. Oh yes.

Yeah. And then the script comes and then, like you said, you actually see it laid out. You weren't a singer.

You're not known as a singer. We've never, to my recollection, heard you sing in any other films. And here you are portraying the greatest one, arguably.

What was it like to see it on the page and then know what you had to do?

“I think it took me a minute. I knew Pablo's process. I think I would have been even more scared in the beginning if I really understood all that I would later come to understand about what was expected.

“But in the beginning, I think I thought, well, you're acting as a singer. You're going to have to make sure you can sing along with her, match your mouth. You're going to have to sing some part.”

“But I didn't really understand that they needed me to actually sing and learn to sing opera. And I think even Pablo didn't fully in the beginning understand what it was going to be, because as it would go on, we would understand, okay, I have to learn the arias, then I have to get an Italian coach, so I'm definitely making sure my Italian is right. Then I have to do a singing class.

“Then I did singing class for a long time until we all realized I need an opera singer, because singing and singing opera, not the same class, right? So that was another discovery that we would add all these parts. Then we would both learn from John about how we were going to have to record it.”

“So we were then both informed that in order to really get the mix and to do the mix right, it meant I would have to actually perform it with no music accompanying it, with none of her voice being heard, just only my voice in the room or on the stage, in front of audience and in front of crew, and that was going to be the only way to actually blend us. That was when I got really- that's when the reality hit home that we were actually going to be doing this.

“Then the added layer of it's not singing and it's not just singing in Italian, it's also playing a character because she's an actress and it's performing a piece on stage that is Annabellena or it's- It was so beyond anything I was comfortable with that I think it shook me out of my fear.

Just for our listeners, what is the difference of learning to sing a pop song that way versus an opera singer? What does it require of your body and your voice?”

“I would say to anybody listening, have you ever with your full body, saying your full voice, tested the boundaries of your full sound from your belly through your mouth, have you ever tried? And have you ever tried connected to your full emotion, right, the depth of your anguish, the extent of your hope connected to sound from your body and let out everything you've got. As a human being, most of us have never done that.

“It's something we don't do because it's how we hold a lot of our pain inside. It's what we don't release. And so I think that the biggest difference is that there is, like we said, like there's not a drop of anything left on the floor once you've expressed fully through opera, your full feelings and your full sound with all the physicality you have in your body.

“There's very little left of you when that's over. Like there's nothing you're still holding on to. And usually as an artist, you let out parts, you control parts, you give a taste of something or a feeling of something, but you don't let it all out.”

“And so that's why it was part singing lessons and opera lessons and also part having to let go of a lot as a human being and share a lot in a way that I was not comfortable. And yet now I wish it for everybody in the world. I wish just go to the ocean by yourself and scream into the, you know, I think it's a really important thing for us to do.

I think about that scene in the kitchen, which is the first time the audience sees Maria sing to Bruna, her housemaid, and then to the scenes where she's performing with hundreds of people in there. I assume extras, obviously. How is that as an artist at experience for you?

Were they of equal measure or did you feel like something else happened when you knew that there were people watching?

“The funny thing is in the film, cause it's like the magic of movies, right? To you, one was singing to my friend in the kitchen and the other one was to an audience. But obviously they're both in front of an entire crew.”

That's so true. I didn't even think about that. It is the movie magic.

“Good.

“That means we did our job well.

Yeah.

“I mean, in a funny way, the kitchen's harder cause everybody's just standing quietly on a set and you're not even on a stage. Like you can't hear a pin drop and it's just me. And the thing I would just say that I think when I started this, I thought, yeah, I'll sing.

“But in order for it to be convincing and to do it, you have to be very loud when you sing opera. So whether you feel confident or not, you have to still be very loud. And every single person on the street could probably hear you.

“In the final scene when the doors were open and we were in a real apartment, I knew that whoever was on the street or walking by, right?

Yeah.

“To your point about when she's in her full kind of glory and it's her on stage, an absolute majority Maria's voice, even though I still had to sing them alone by myself, I had this beautiful relationship with the audience because Pablo did a wonderful thing in that he cast a group to be the audience that stayed the audience. And so they were with me through a few performances. I became a performer to an audience and these wonderful people who were playing the extras on the day would become so essential to the piece.

“And I think the first day I kind of met them and said, I apologize for what's about to happen in case I hit the wrong notes loudly, but I'm going to do my best to perform for you. So it helped me because I was performing to a real audience. And they were so kind, really kind people who knew that I was trying my best and I wasn't an opera singer, but I was learning and also flew them out when we did La Scala.”

“So it was kind of this interesting thing that we'd been on this journey. They'd seen me the first time I did it in front of an audience, the second time, the harder, different operas, different costume changes, different performances, and then we all went together for these few intense hours that we had to pull off La Scala. And so it really was a lovely thing.

“I felt like we were connected in the attempt and in the storytelling.

That's lovely. I love that he did that. It's true you are connected at that point.

And to all share that experience in that historic opera house together. It feels like it's kind of complete.

“Yeah, and they knew like, okay, here I go, guys. I got to do the mad scene from Anna Belina on the stage at La Scala and hit these notes and do this thing. And they knew I was trying and they knew I was nervous and they knew I was doing my best for them.

“So somehow their understanding and support was everything. And sometimes they'd applaud and we'd smile at each other. And it was everything.”

“So I was, yeah.

Oh, that's so sweet.

“It was wonderful.

All right. The costume designer, Massimo Cattini Parini. The costumes in this are magnificent.

Obviously, you expect nothing less. It's a Pablo Larraín film, it's Maria Callas. Let's see what that world is through the wardrobe and what she's wearing and how she moves in it.

So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that relationship between the two of you and creating Maria for you.

“He was so wonderful and there were these different things happening. So there was actual costumes for opera because we were going to perform all the opera. So it was like we were doing pieces within pieces within pieces.

“So we were actually going to have to perform and match the costumes to opera as they were. And so that was one. And then some of those would be, I can't move in this or this is too tighter.”

“This is on my throat and I have to sing, which is something I never thought I'd be saying. I need to adjust this for my voice, which felt funny at first, but became very real. And then there was the Maria as we remember her.

“And the trick was which things we would be mimicking history and then making sure it wasn't just doing that. So how do we make them real and personal and adjust them? And when?

“Which ones to try to match a part of history and which ones to shake it out a bit and adjust? But the truth is, the first Maria I wanted to test, because we did a test day, was older Maria. Because I felt the costumes for the performances are what they are, and that's Anna Bolena, that's not Maria.

“And the 50s, 60s, 70s woman in public is another Maria that we know. But the Maria that we don't know, the Greek American woman who's in her 50s and has had health issues and has a charm necklace around her neck that has different things from her faith to her family. We did that woman first.”

“We put together the woman with the gray hair and the fragile body. We did that first and that fed everything else, because everything else, it was more important that it didn't distract or become a caricature.

Was there one thing in particular that you're like, oh, this is it, I'm in her skin now when you put on the clothes?

“This robe that was handmade in Italy, that and the glasses from the props team and the wig and my hair and makeup team, which were extraordinary.

Oh, that robe, I gasped when I first saw that on screen.

The white one that's all knitted.

“The white one that was like crochet or hand-knit and the way you looser it, it felt very intimate in that. And she was so comfortable in that space and in her apartment. And then the vanity, obviously, to be able to wear those glasses, because I didn't realize that she was almost blind, basically, and needed those thick, thick, thick glasses.”

But yeah, I know that robe, I'm like, where is that robe? Did you get to take that robe?

“No, but I do, you know what I do have? I have this funny thing. I saw it the other day.

“It's like in a Ziploc baggie, and it's a bottle of Mandrakes and a pair of glasses. And it's just such a funny thing to look at, because that's somehow what I ended up with, I guess, from props and a few album covers. So it was bringing in those touches to find the real woman.

And then I felt like, finding her style, little things of just like, this is her at home, and then how does she adjust herself when she has to go out in public? How does she protect herself? Is she hiding?

You know, what does she feel like when she has to go face the public when she's older? And so some of the outfits were, you know, her still holding her style, which was beautifully eccentric, too. I love that.”

“I love that, and I kind of felt more like beautiful eccentrics, right, that are not just dressed in the latest thing in the shops, but have, like, earned a wardrobe over a lifetime and are beautifully eccentric and artistic.

I love that, earning it over a lifetime, just a collection of pieces, and everything is deliberate and meaningful to her.

That's right.

It's not just, like, thrown on.

Like some stylist found it and threw it in.

Yeah, no. It's her life.

This is a really emotional and a physical performance. How was the creative connection for you and Pablo through that? How'd you guys work together?

“He's a wonderful director. He has such a vision. So creative, so strong, but also very curious and open about how actors are feeling and what's personal to them and human behavior.

“I think sometimes people are very good visually, but not necessarily good with humanity. Sometimes we don't always get that mix in one, where it can be or something that's very intimate, but somehow lose his scope. So he's a rare person that understands both, and so it was wonderful to work with him.”

“And he, I just always felt a part of the process. I felt like he was wanting me to connect to her more than tell me what he wanted from her. He wanted to guide me and give me space and make situations where I would be within them and we would learn together from the situation and from the space.

“The music was key to everything. He grew up listening to opera. His mom would take him to the opera all the time.

“So he probably of a lot of the pieces he's done, and certainly pieces about women that we know, this is the one he probably feels that he knows the most, her world he knows the most. So I learned a lot from him about the music and he gave me space to understand the woman.”

Yeah, there's a couple lines in there through the film, just understanding opera of like, you have to give absolutely everything and you described it a little bit earlier and just the physicalness of it, but the emotion of it. And I remember the first time I saw an opera was at the Met and I was so young in my career. My mentor had taken me big opera fanatic and I was so excited to see the curtain at the Met and you know, it was just so glamorous and I was so naive.

I'm thinking it's like Broadway, like seven shows and I was like, wow, it's Renee Fleming and she's only doing one, you know, I was like, why don't they do more performances and then after you realize it takes everything, they need days if not weeks to recover. Someone is on a run of show for like a Broadway, three weeks, you know, it's like two performances a week is basically what it was and how special that moment is. I love the way you and Pablo captured that.

Like it is a moment in time and she has that great line about, I don't want records. Records are perfection and a performance has to be a lie.

I never listen to my own records. Please turn it off.

This is my caffemina and this is what I listen to when I am alone.

You are not alone. Please turn it off. I cannot listen to my own records.

Why not?

Because it is perfect and a song should never be perfect. It should be performed in that moment differently to every other time.

I love that line in the film. I was just saying it gave me chills because it is like there is something about when you're in the room when it's happening versus this perfect recording.

And it could fail and there's something alive and dangerous to it when anybody's trying something so big. And also you can just feel you're in the presence of somebody expressing that much on stage and for you. It's a real connection to the audience.”

“I think that was something that helped me a lot as well, which I love performing. I don't perform for myself. I perform for an audience.

“And it was nice to come back to that, just that work and trying to do something, trying to do it as good as I could for the audience. And funny, you mentioned that the time in between he did, he really tried to separate because I did have a director that understood this is a day she's going to sing all day, and then we're going to have to give her a few days in between to prepare for the next one and rest her voice. A lot of directors may not understand how much he understood the warm ups and everything was being a singer for that time.”

I want to talk about the other part of the film that was so moving to me is Maria's relationships with her housemaid Bruna that I mentioned earlier, and her butler Ferruccio. Pierfrancesco Favino plays Ferruccio and Alba Rohrwacher, who's incredible as Bruna. And to me, it's just this poignant, beautiful chemistry that the three of you have, that the audience can project so much onto that relationship in that apartment, and the piano is this other character, right, in the apartment.

But you say at one point, Bruna is my mother, my daughter, my sister, my housekeeper. It's very crowded in our apartment.

I have my car. I can drive you back to your prison cell and have a new George Mandela, if that's what you want.

Bruna is my mother, my sister, my daughter, my housemaid. Ferruccio is my father, my son, my brother, my butler. It is a terribly crowded apartment.

I love that sentiment. It was so well written and so accurate.

“Which is also Stephen Knight. Beautiful script.”

Right. Talk to me about getting to work with them and kind of getting that, because it's very intimate. You have to have immediate intimacy between the three of you to have those scenes carry the way they do.

“Well, first of all, they're extraordinary actors. I mean, just extraordinary actors. And they did a beautiful thing where they were so within their character that how we were started to match in some way, they were in support of Maria, and then the actors and I had a similar where I would do things that were, I'd sing in the kitchen to Bruna, and this was me and Alba.

“It wasn't two actors. It was actually me singing to her, her telling me what she thought and being kind to me and being supportive, looking at me as I was doing it, knowing I was nervous to do it. Right?

We were together. We were a team. We became a real team through the piece.”

“We became a family, and I think we all collectively care for these real people, and we thought often about how extraordinary these relationships were because Ferruccio is still alive. He's not on talk shows saying bad things about Maria. He protected her with the world of gossip and people hurting people or using people.

“They were her real friends, and they had real love for her, and she loved them. We all felt that, and we all felt connected to that, and I think we kind of became, in a funny way, three people that loved each other and worked together well.

Yeah, and that was great, the card scene, you felt that love, and that's what happens because everyone's at their most vulnerable.

“I remember they came in the day that I was doing the last scene, and they weren't working, but they were there. It was a big, complicated end, and then turning the corner when I would step out to try to get my breath, and they were there. And they'd been watching and gave me a hug, and they are so brilliant as artists, and they are really kind, and they're really generous as artists as well.

Yeah, I would say the casting is fantastic in the film as well. Haluk and Alba's character, and Kodi was great.

“And not an easy role. I think it's one that somebody could have made a caricature of or turned it into something or made it disingenuine, right? And he found beauty in it.

What is your favorite part of the day when you're going to work?

“I like the, nobody's ever asked me that. I think I like the moment when you're deeply in the trenches, trying to fix something or fight for something or push yourself to a limit. I like when work is hard.

“And I like being a part of a crew. I like being a part of a team of artists. The special thing about making film that maybe Maria didn't have as much, even though she'd do pieces, but so much of her life was her and her alone standing on that stage.”

“And when you're an actor, director, or even anybody that's in a film crew, you're a part of a team. That's a wonderful feeling to be a part of a collective making something together. It's a really special feeling.

“So I love that.

“And my sons worked on this one. So it was also nice. Yeah.

“They were doing the AD work and some of the photography.

Future filmmakers.

“I don't know. I mean, the AD work is not easy work, so it's good that they do that work and learn to cut their teeth with that. Pax does some stills and some video, but I think it's also just being in a part of a crew, right?”

“Feeling a useful part of the crew and just being of service is what's important, that they feel and they learn that it's not about what you can grow into or what you have, but just really appreciate being a part of that crew. But it was also probably one of the things I also had to overcome, because I didn't think about it when we were, we've worked together on quite a few projects, mostly ones I've directed. But I realized after the first big scene and they came in a bit worried that I never cry in front of my children, not like that.

“They can see you weep a little, but anyone who's a parent knows that you do not show your children that level of pain. You don't want them to know you feel that or carry that. And so when I saw their faces after one of the first big ones, we talked, I think the important thing is they knew they were the reason I don't feel like that, right, that they could come and give me a hug and we could get a cup of tea and we could just get through and talk about the...

“But that was unusual, that was hard. Or even scenes where she's being attacked a certain way. And seeing that there were certain aspects of it that were unusual.

“But then also good for them to see their mom try for something she's not necessarily good at. Good for them to experience their mom try and fail at some things and work really hard and be really nervous and struggle and be a part of carrying it out. That we all get through it together.

That's a big thing for them to see. But it is true, I get it. I have two boys.

And when you see mom cry, it becomes a different... Yeah. Yeah.

I can appreciate that.

“I knew that I was going to be nervous and they'd protect me when I'm singing. And I knew they'd be supportive even if I was bad. They'd try to help me.

“But yeah, I didn't think about that until it happened. That was a big one.

All right. I have a question about diva because Maria Callas was the diva. I looked it up actually, what is the definition of diva?

And it's an Italian opera “singer, it says, if you just go on dictionary. But I feel like our relationship, certainly women's relationship has changed from the 20th century to the 21st century around the word diva. Now it's used in a way that's derogatory is my feeling.

But I'm just curious for you playing Maria, basically the genesis of the word was Maria Callas diva. How is your relationship with that word? Or did you learn anything more through it?

Or did you not even think about it?

“People had a lot of opinions about her. And when you get close and you discover a lot of why somebody might say she was acting this way or difficult. There was a discovery of a woman who was dealing with health issues, went through a difficult time in her childhood, worked so hard since she was a teen in the conservatory, to take responsibility for her work to do the best job she can do.”

“And in order for her to do that over her life, there would be times where somebody would say, oh, well, she was difficult about that. And when you'd look into it, you'd say, well, no, she needed the air conditioning off for her voice. And no, she couldn't sing into the corner because it wouldn't be the right sound for her voice.

“And she was a technician and she needed this to be this. And she was a lot of the times it was about the conditions and the work that she was trying to protect to do her job. And that was often when she was called a diva.

And so when I think of that, there's a difference. And I think, like you point out, they may be now it's considered somebody demanding unnecessary things for their own comfort or something like that. But then there is the other, which is the understanding of the person who has to be in the ring protecting their work and being clear about what they need in order to do their work.”

“And for a woman at that time, and maybe even today, that's seen as a negative. I think maybe it just always will be that when a man demands something or a woman demands something, it comes across differently. Society receives it differently.

“And so I think women have learned to try to adjust their approach to asking for what they need. Sometimes they don't even ask. Because of being afraid of how it will be received.

“But for her and playing her, I kind of took it upon myself to believe that the job was protect the work. Whatever it may be, protect the work, because that's your job. You know, be gracious, but don't not say what you need.

“Get the work done.

So I am asking everybody, and I'm curious about your answers, so what's that song that you're either driving on PCH or going in the hills? And now would it be opera or what? Because I know you like The Clash.

You said to me about The Clash earlier.

“I love Burundian drummers. There's also a great section, I think it's Joe Strummer from The Clash, but Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros where it's just instrument and drums and I love that. And yes, now I would think I would listen to more opera.

“I love opera now. It's hard to pick one though. It's so full that it has to meet how you're feeling somehow in that moment.

“And I believe that there's something to it where when you feel that maybe it's getting older as well, you feel that depth of anguish. There isn't a song other than that piece of opera that meets that feeling, or also that beauty and that hope and that expression. So I know Pablo always jokes with me because I do love the Mad Scene.

“It's probably one of my favorite pieces to sing and to listen to. I loved Ave Maria because it reminds me of my mother.

Yeah.

“I love. I live for art is one of the most beautiful pieces and where Pablo put it in the film, I think is extraordinary.

All right. I like that image. Little of that, windows down, Angelina screaming into the wind.

From Skip Intro: Angelina Jolie, Dec 13, 2024 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/skip-intro/id1468510314?i=1000680254527&r=1863 This material may be protected by copyright.

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THR Awards Chatter

By Scott Feinberg (The Hollywood Reporter). 

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

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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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