Playing by 'Heart': Q&A With Angelina Jolie

By Kevin Polowy

Related Links See 'A Mighty Heart' trailer Read Mariane Pearl Q&A Watch 'A Mighty Heart' clip Get showtimes & tickets Post your comments Get more on 'A Mighty Heart'

Is it possible to be a tabloid sensation, global activist AND Oscar contender? While most of the glossy mags' favorite girls command headlines for doing little more than going wild (and wilder), Angelina Jolie has remained the cover star with a conscience. Now, Jolie's reminding the globe she trots with regularity of the reason we fell for her in the first place: her dramatic chops. In a role as meaty as they come, Jolie plays Mariane Pearl, widow to slain journalist Daniel Pearl, in Michael Winterbottom's new docudrama 'A Mighty Heart.'

The film, based on Mariane's memoir about the month-long search for her missing husband while she held vigil in their temporary Pakistan home, finds Jolie masked behind darker skin, curlier hair and an exotic accent (Mariane is of Afro-Cuban and Dutch descent and was raised in Paris). Obviously, the role requires Jolie -- as a grieving but strong-willed, very pregnant woman -- to enter some dark and painful places, and she responds with a triumphant performance. We sat down with the hugely popular actress to discuss her return to serious work, the logistics of collaborating with father-to-her-four-children Brad Pitt (who produced the film), global terrorism and how she sees Americans viewed from abroad.

Much has been made over the fact that 'A Mighty Heart' is probably your most serious role since 'Girl, Interrupted.' Do you find that these kind of roles are very hard to come by or do you tend to pass them up in favor of mixing it up?
A bit of both. They are hard to come by but I have to say that I've been lucky and do find a balance as a woman. If I did too many films like this back to back, it would probably not be good for me [laughs]. It's good to be physical and fun and all those things and we all need balances as people. So as an artist if you are lucky enough to be able to do different films, do different genres, it's balancing. But these are certainly the most rewarding, the ones that you enter this business to do.

From an audience viewpoint, what do you think the appeal is to experiencing or reliving recent, real-life events, as traumatic as they might be?
I think there can be something cathartic about it. I think to remind us to stay on the right path. We are a country still at war. We talk about and live with terrorism. And most of us remember when Danny was kidnapped and when he was killed. We remember hearing Mariane speak. For me, just working on it as a citizen and remembering that time, [it helps thinking about] how to handle everything going on now in the world and how to make sense of it. It helped me to kind of confront all of the fears and the dangers of the world today. And also to hear a voice that is very clear like hers that helps to pull through and focus on how we can get ourselves out of this thing and how we can rise above it.

What have your interactions with Mariane Pearl been like?
We tried to first meet up [about] four years ago. We had both heard about each other as women and we had different things that we were working on internationally that were similar, and we were both single moms. So we passed notes back and forth to say, 'Let's have a play date.' It took us awhile and then we did. But during the process of this film, we really got to know each other and spend time together and have since become friends.

Did she have any specific requests in terms of how the story would be told?
She did. She asked to stay truthful to the story and her version of that truth is her book. So we stay true to the book but we also talked to Danny's parents and tried to understand where they were coming from and really [where everybody was coming from]. But I think the reason she allowed the people involved to be the people involved was because she believed that they understood the message and that their intention in making the movie wasn't because they wanted to make a movie but that they felt it was an important message to get out. And that's all she asked.

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