The only movie Angelina Jolie felt compelled to make: “I knew I needed to do that”
Angelina Jolie is nothing short of Hollywood royalty. She once ruled the roost as the industry’s biggest female star, living and breathing everything that embodied being an A-lister: the money, the glamour, the box office-toppers, the awards; it was all hers. While he’s less in the spotlight these days, focusing her time mainly on directing, she is an undeniable icon.
When your name carries as much weight as Jolie’s, you can basically pick and choose whatever roles you want. This might seem like a dream come true, but actually, it might make things more difficult. There are many questions that lurk, such as, how do you know which project is right for you? How do you know that the script you’ve just passed on won’t be the one that wins you an Oscar? According to the megastar, there’s no exact science.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Jolie was asked why she’d opted to join the cast of the 2008 thriller Wanted. “I had just done A Mighty Heart and was scheduled to do Changeling, which is about the kidnapping of a child. And I had lost my mom,” she replied. “I knew I was in this odd, fuzzy state going from one loss and kidnapping to another loss and kidnapping. Then Wanted came along. It’s about being physical and jumping and running and being violent, and instinctively, I knew I needed to do that.”
Jolie’s mother, Marcia Bertrand, passed away at the age of just 56 in 2007 following a battle with ovarian cancer. This would have made filming Changeling especially difficult for Jolie. Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film is the story of Christine Collins (Jolie), a woman whose son is returned to her after a suspected kidnapping.
However, not all is what it seems, as Christine begins to suspect that the boy isn’t the same one that went missing. Considering the themes of maternity that dominate this picture, which started shooting less than ten months after Bertrand’s death, it’s a minor miracle Jolie managed to get through it. She was nominated for the ‘Best Actress’ Oscar for the film, which is proof that she was clearly able to channel her grief into an astounding performance.
Given that she knew what was on the horizon, it makes perfect sense that Jolie picked something much less intense immediately beforehand. Wanted, which was filmed before Changeling but technically debuted after it, is pretty much the complete opposite movie. It stars James McAvoy as a man who joins a clan of bullet-bending assassins, with Jolie serving as his mentor. Eastwood actually served as a major inspiration for her character, no doubt because she knew they’d be working together soon.
Movies aren’t always about Shakespearean monologues and deep social commentary. Sometimes, you just have to sit back and enjoy a silly shoot ‘em up. As it turns out, they can be just as therapeutic for the actors as for those in the cinema.
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