The unexpected role that helped Angelina Jolie work through her trauma
As an actor who’s always been open about their difficult upbringing and often troubled past, it made perfect sense for Angelina Jolie to use her platform as an actor and filmmaker to become a human rights campaigner, using her profile to help shine a light on parts of the world where people have it much worse than she ever did.
Not that her own life has been a walk in the park by comparison; far from it, in fact. Jolie suffered a strained relationship with her father, Jon Voight, that took years to even begin entering a state of repair, with the Academy Award winner never shying away from discussing her darkest moments in a public setting.
Jolie had admitted that she self-harmed as a teenager and used drugs as a coping mechanism to try and suppress the impact on her mental health, and she even hired a hitman to kill her when she didn’t want to make her family feel guilty or accountable in the event of her death.
It was a remarkable turnaround that she evolved into one of the most famous stars on the planet well before she’d even left her 20s, with her interest in taking on an active role in humanitarianism being sparked during the production of the video game adaptation Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which led to the adoption of her first child, Cambodian orphan Maddox.
Jolie didn’t simply consign her trauma to the past, though, but she did find different ways of dealing with it. One of the most unexpected came via the Marvel Cinematic Universe after she explained to CinemaBlend that playing an immortal extraterrestrial in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals gave her another platform to confront her past.
“Well, you know, like many people, I have my own struggles with different traumas or things that have happened, and so many of us become overwhelmed by the weight of our lives or our memories,” she said. “And in some way, it was therapeutic to let it come through. And what I liked about her is that she is both; she’s also very strong.”
In Eternals, Jolie played Thena, one of the titular beings sent to influence the progression of life on Earth. Over the course of the movie, she witnesses the brutality of centuries of human development and becomes overwhelmed by these memories, choosing to live in self-imposed exile, and the idea of a character disillusioned by the worst of humanity is one that hit close to home.
Inspired just as much by Thena’s trauma and inner strength as her comic book superpowers, it’s more proof that whether it’s a character-led drama or a blockbuster comic book adaptation, Jolie’s strength, humanity, and empathy are always at the forefront of her performances, even ones who need to battle CGI creatures and save the world.
