Angelina Jolie
Overview
Angelina Jolie (born June 4, 1975) is an American actress, film director, producer, and humanitarian activist. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and established herself as one of Hollywood's top stars, and she is also well known for her leading role on international refugee and human rights issues as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and Special Envoy. She is a quintessential contemporary cultural figure who spans three fields: actor, director, and activist.
Main Content
Birth and Upbringing
Jolie was born in 1975 in Los Angeles, USA, to actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand. Her parents divorced during her childhood, and she was raised by her mother. She showed an interest in acting from a young age, studied at places including the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and began her career in television and low-budget films in the early 1990s.
Acting Career
In the late 1990s she drew attention by winning a Golden Globe for Gia (1998), and she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted (1999). In 2001 she took on the role of Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, rising to become a global action star, and she subsequently appeared in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Changeling (2008), Salt (2010), and the Maleficent series (2014, 2019), among others. With a broad acting range that moves between action and drama, she has achieved success in both commercial and critical terms.
Directing and Producing
She made her directorial debut in 2011 with In the Land of Blood and Honey, about the Bosnian War, and went on to direct Unbroken (2014) and First They Killed My Father (2017), among others. She has also worked as a theater producer, producing the musical The Outsiders, which won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Musical.
Humanitarian and Human Rights Work
After being appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in 2001, she visited conflict zones such as Cambodia, Sudan, and Syria numerous times, bringing refugee issues to the attention of the international community. From 2012 she served as a UNHCR Special Envoy, leading campaigns to eradicate sexual violence in conflict zones and activities to protect the rights of women and children. In December 2022 she stepped down from the UNHCR Special Envoy post after 21 years, and since then she has continued her work in direct cooperation with various human rights organizations. She has also carried on foundation work to support education for refugee children and to advance women's rights.
Personal Life
She went through marriages and divorces with Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, married Brad Pitt in 2014, separated in 2016, and the divorce was finalized in 2019. She has six children: Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax, Knox, and Vivienne. In 2013, she revealed through a New York Times op-ed that she carries a BRCA1 gene mutation and had undergone a preventive double mastectomy, which caused a major stir and was credited with contributing to raising awareness of women's health. In 2017 she also disclosed that she had been battling facial nerve paralysis (Bell's palsy). Her long-running legal dispute with Brad Pitt over the French Miraval winery has continued to draw public attention.
Recent Developments
In 2024, Jolie played the lead in Maria, a film about Maria Callas, receiving an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice International Film Festival and earning nominations at major awards including the Golden Globes, prompting a reassessment of her acting. In 2023 she opened 'Atelier Jolie,' a sustainable fashion and craft platform in New York, pursuing a business that emphasizes ethical consumption and craftsmanship. In the humanitarian sphere, even after resigning as UNHCR Special Envoy, she has spoken out on sexual violence in conflict zones and support for children's education in cooperation with refugee and women's human rights organizations. Since the mid-2020s she has shown a tendency to prefer auteur films and projects carrying social messages over commercial blockbusters, while coverage of her relationships with her six children and her legal dispute with her ex-husband continues to be a major focus of interest in the mass media. She also maintains her influence in Hollywood by expanding her collaborations with younger-generation actors and directors and her activities as a producer.
Related Topics
- [[Brad Pitt]]
- [[UNHCR]]
- [[Hollywood]]
- [[Academy Awards]]
- [[Refugees]]