How Clint Eastwood’s signature style brought out the best in Angelina Jolie: “He’ll get it, take care of it, and move on”
Angelina Jolie isn’t just a celebrated actor; she’s carved out an impressive career behind the camera too. Her directorial journey began with the 2007 documentary A Place in Time, a reflective piece that set the stage for her transition to narrative filmmaking. From there, in 2011, she delivered the harrowing Bosnian War drama In the Land of Blood and Honey, showcasing her ability to tackle intense and deeply human stories.
However, perhaps her most iconic work came in 2014 with Unbroken, the gripping tale of Louis Zamperini, a US Olympian turned World War II prisoner, brought to life by Jack O’Connell. Fast-forward to 2024, and Jolie’s latest venture, Without Blood, sees her team up with Salma Hayek for yet another bold cinematic chapter.
Jolie has undoubtedly drawn on several of the esteemed names she had worked with in her own directing career. She’s worked for the likes of Jan De Bont, James Mangold, Chloe Zhao, and Clint Eastwood, for whom she starred in 2008’s Changeling. When promoting that particular film to Movies, Jolie was quick to point out how strong a creative leader the legendary cowboy actor was.
“As an actress, there have been so many times I’ve worked on films that have required a lot of emotion and a director that didn’t understand it,” she revealed. “You’d start the scene and do ten takes in a wide shot. You’re crying and crying and crying. Then they get close, and you’re still trying to emote the same honesty. Then they want to do another, and you feel, by three hours later, you don’t know what’s happening.”
Eastwood, though, perhaps due to his decades of acting experience, took a different approach. “With Clint you just lay it out for him and he’ll get it, take care of it, and move on,” Jolie continued. “You feel safe enough to just lay yourself bare and expose everything and so it’s that that allowed for it. There is something so heroic about this woman – the way she takes on the system and changes the law. I felt it was a story that needed to be told.”
In Changeling, Jolie plays Christine Collins, a woman who initially believes she has been reunited with her missing son, only to discover the real, harrowing truth. The movies are based on the so-called ‘Wineville Chicken Coop’ murders, a series of abductions and killings of young boys that took place in California in 1928. The story of Christine and her ‘son’ Walter attracted national media attention, especially when she was sentenced to a mental asylum after refusing to believe that her boy had been found.
The actor said that Collins reminded her of her own mother, the actor Marcheline Bertrand, who died just a few months before shooting on the project began. “It wasn’t just the way she looks but the openness and the kindness she shows and the frailty,” Jolie said of the comparisons between the two women. “She wasn’t this modern woman that I am with the confidence I’m able to have. She was more shy and more feminine in a way and there’s something beautiful about that. I think the modern woman stays away from that because we want to be so strong. But there was something very pleasing to play the lovely, soft, gentle mother.”
Changeling went down a storm with critics, landing Jolie a Best Actress nomination at the Oscars. She must have taken onboard the lessons Eastwood imparted on her during this time, otherwise she wouldn’t be the prolific filmmaker that she is today.
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