Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie[3] (/dʒoʊˈliː/; born Angelina Jolie Voight;[4] June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards, she has been named Hollywood's highest-paid actress multiple times.
"Jolie" redirects here. For other uses, see Jolie (disambiguation).
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie Pitt[1]
- United States
- Cambodia[a]
- Actress
- filmmaker
- humanitarian
1982–present
6
- Jon Voight (father)
- Marcheline Bertrand (mother)
- James Haven (brother)
- Barry Voight (uncle)
- Chip Taylor (uncle)
António Guterres
(2012–2015)
Filippo Grandi
(2016–2022)
Office established
Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father, Jon Voight, in Lookin' to Get Out (1982). Her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993), followed by her first leading role in Hackers (1995). After starring in the biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), Jolie won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a sociopath in the 1999 drama Girl, Interrupted. Her portrayal of the titular heroine in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) established her as a household name. Her fame continued with roles in the action films Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), and Salt (2010). She also received acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), the latter earning her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other commercial successes include the fantasy film Maleficent (2014), its 2019 sequel, and the superhero film Eternals (2021). She played a voice role in the Kung Fu Panda animated film series from 2008 to 2016. Jolie has directed and written the war dramas In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), Unbroken (2014), and First They Killed My Father (2017).
Jolie is known for her humanitarian efforts. The causes she promotes include conservation, education, and women's rights. She has been noted for her advocacy on behalf of refugees as a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She has undertaken various field missions to refugee camps and war zones worldwide. In addition to receiving a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award among other honors, Jolie was made an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George.
As a public figure, Jolie has been cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in the American entertainment industry. She has been cited as the world's most beautiful woman by various publications. Her personal life, including her relationships and health, has been the subject of widespread attention. Jolie is divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller, Billy Bob Thornton, and Brad Pitt. She has six children with Pitt.
Career
Early work (1991–1997)
Jolie committed to acting professionally at the age of 16, but initially found it difficult to pass auditions, often being told that her demeanor was "too dark."[15] She appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinema-Television, as well as in several music videos, such as those for Lenny Kravitz's "Stand by My Woman" (1991), Antonello Venditti's "Alta Marea" (1991), The Lemonheads's "It's About Time" (1993), and Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" (1993). In 1993, she appeared on the cover of the Widespread Panic album Everyday.[32] Jolie then learned from her father by noticing his method of observing people to become like them. Their relationship was less strained during this time, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens".[14]
Jolie started her professional film career in 1993, when she played her first leading role in the direct-to-video science-fiction sequel Cyborg 2, as a near-human robot designed for corporate espionage and assassination. She was so disappointed with the film that she did not audition again for a year.[15] Following a supporting role in the independent film Without Evidence (1995), she starred in her first major studio film, Hackers (1995). The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote that Jolie's character "stands out ... because she scowls even more sourly than [her co-stars] and is that rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top."[33] Hackers failed to make a profit at the box office, but developed a cult following after its video release.[34] The role in Hackers is considered Jolie's breakthrough.[35][36][37]
After starring in the modern-day Romeo and Juliet adaptation Love Is All There Is (1996), Jolie appeared in the road movie Mojave Moon (1996). In Foxfire (1996) she played Legs, a drifter who unites four teenage girls against a teacher who has sexually harassed them. Jack Mathews of the Los Angeles Times wrote of her performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype. Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the subject and the catalyst."[38]
In 1997, Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God, set in the Los Angeles underworld. The film was not well received by critics; Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert wrote that Jolie "finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be [a mobster's] girlfriend, and maybe she is."[39] Her next work, as a frontierswoman in the CBS miniseries True Women (1997), was even less successful; writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Robert Strauss dismissed her as "horrid, a fourth-rate Scarlett O'Hara" who relies on "gnashed teeth and overly pouted lips."[40] Jolie also starred in the music video for the Rolling Stones's "Anybody Seen My Baby?" as a stripper who leaves mid-performance to wander New York City.[41]
Rise to prominence (1998–2000)
Jolie's career prospects improved after she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in TNT's George Wallace (1997), a film about segregationist Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace, played by Gary Sinise. Jolie portrayed Wallace's second wife, Cornelia Wallace, a performance Lee Winfrey of The Philadelphia Inquirer considered a highlight of the film.[42] George Wallace was well received by critics, and Jolie received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her performance.[43]
Jolie portrayed supermodel Gia Carangi in HBO's Gia (1998). The television film chronicles the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a result of her addiction to heroin, and her decline and death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. Vanessa Vance of Reel.com retrospectively noted, "Jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her portrayal—filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation—and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed."[44] For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe Award and received an Emmy Award nomination. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award.[45]
In accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting, Jolie preferred to stay in character in between scenes during many of her early films. While shooting Gia, she told her husband, Jonny Lee Miller, that she would not be able to phone him: "I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks.'"[46] After Gia wrapped, she briefly gave up acting, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give."[15] She separated from Miller and moved to New York, where she took night classes at New York University to study directing and screenwriting.[12] Encouraged by her Golden Globe Award win for George Wallace and the positive critical reception of Gia, Jolie resumed her career.[15]
Following the previously filmed gangster film Hell's Kitchen (1998), Jolie returned to the screen in Playing by Heart (1998), part of an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, and Ryan Phillippe. The film received predominantly positive reviews, and Jolie was praised in particular; San Francisco Chronicle critic Peter Stack wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble."[47] She won the Breakthrough Performance Award from the National Board of Review.[48]
In 1999, Jolie starred in the comedy-drama Pushing Tin, alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. The film met with mixed reception from critics, and Jolie's character—Thornton's seductive wife—was particularly criticized; writing for The Washington Post, Desson Howe dismissed her as "a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire nights away from home."[49] Jolie then co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector (1999), playing a police officer who reluctantly helps Washington's quadriplegic detective track down a serial killer. The film grossed $151.5 million worldwide,[50] but was critically unsuccessful. Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."[51]
Personal life
Relationships and marriages
Jolie had a serious boyfriend for two years from the age of 14. Her mother allowed them to live together in her home, of which Jolie later said,