ANGELINA JOLIE, 46, the thrice-married mother of six children, has won two Oscars and is Hollywood’s highest-paid actress, commanding $20m per film. Arguably her most rewarding role is as Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Jolie stars as a guilt-ridden smoke-jumper in the action thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead, out May 14.
SHE DOES
BELIEVE women should develop a resilient mindset: “I often tell my daughters the most important thing they can do is to develop their minds. You can always put on a pretty dress, but it doesn’t matter what you wear on the outside if your mind isn’t strong.”
ENCOURAGE her children to learn languages: Shiloh is learning Khmai [a Cambodian language]; Pax Vietnamese; Maddox German and Russian; Zahara, French; Vivienne, Arabic; and Knox, sign language.
HAVE two Academy Awards for her roles in Girl, Interrupted and The Changeling.
HOLD a pilot’s license. WANT to help the young access their human rights: “The message to young people is, no one has the right to harm you, to silence you.”
HAVE 20 tattoos, including the Latin proverb “What nourishes me destroys me”, the Tennessee Williams quote “A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages”, and four Buddhist Sanskrit prayers.
REMAIN good friends with former husbands Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton. Not so with Brad Pitt, from whom she filed for divorce in 2016. They have yet to agree on custody of their children.
ADMIT she had an identity crisis after her break-up with Pitt: “This is a homecoming, I’m coming back to myself. Because I was a little lost.”
WANT to live abroad once her children are 18. She has homes in Africa, France and Cambodia.
ADVOCATE for more so-called “wicked women, who won’t give up on their voice and rights, even at the risk of death or imprisonment or rejection by their families and communities. If that is wickedness, then the world needs more wicked women.”
SHE DOESN’T
LIKE her 40s. “I’m looking forward to my 50s – I feel that I’m gonna hit my stride in my 50s.”
BELIEVE in fast fashion. “I invest in quality pieces, and then just wear them to death. Boots, a favourite coat, a favourite purse, I don’t change things often. That’s one of my things.”
EMPLOY a manager or even a publicist.
WEAR perfumes that are too strong or sweet; “I like a fragrance that is earthy and sensual and can be worn at any time. Mon Guerlain – a nod to one of the most offbeat but beautiful Guerlain scents of all time, Jicky, ticks these boxes, but it’s the integrity of the brand that’s important, too.”
REGRET her double mastectomy and the preventive salpingo-oophorectomy she had as result of signs of early ovarian cancer; surgery brought on premature menopause. “On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”
HIDE that, as a teenager, she found it difficult to emotionally connect with other people, and as a result she self-harmed: “For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me.”
PICK easy causes. She has fronted a campaign against sexual violence in war zones.
FLINCH from becoming involved in politics; she has spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.
DENY a fascination with death: at one time she studied embalming and wanted to be a funeral director
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