Portrait · Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 3.0

Angelina Jolie

Actor, filmmaker, author and humanitarian

Born 1975

Angelina Jolie is an American actor, filmmaker, author and humanitarian. The daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, she trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute with her mother's encouragement, began auditioning as a teenager and later studied screenwriting and directing in New York. Early independent films and Hackers led to the television biopics George Wallace and Gia, followed by an Academy Award for Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted. Her screen range includes Lara Croft, Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart, Christine Collins in Changeling, Salt, Maleficent, Tigress in Kung Fu Panda and Thena in Eternals. Before directing narrative films, she sought practical advice from music supervisors, cinematographers and editors. In the Directors Guild interview, she credits editor Patricia Rommel with teaching her to collect transitional footage and think about how scenes connect. She directed the documentary A Place in Time and narrative films In the Land of Blood and Honey, Unbroken, By the Sea, First They Killed My Father and Without Blood, combining writing and producing on several. Her more recent acting work includes Maria Callas in Maria and Maxine in Alice Winocour's Couture. She also produces Broadway's The Outsiders, co-authored Know Your Rights and Claim Them, and founded the creative collective Atelier Jolie. After two decades with UNHCR, she left its Special Envoy role in 2022 to pursue broader humanitarian work. Announced screen projects include Anxious People and Sunny.

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Connected people

ConnectionPablo LarraínDirected Jolie as Maria Callas in Maria.

ConnectionAlice WinocourDirected Jolie in Couture.

ConnectionJonny Lee MillerHackers co-star; Jolie discusses their continuing friendship in her dated interview.

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Trivia & tastes

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Know Your Rights and Claim ThemAngelina Jolie, Amnesty International and Geraldine Van Bueren

Co-authored guide to young people's rights; an authored work, not a favourite-book claim.

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Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and EcuadorAngelina Jolie

Published field journals from her early refugee work; authored book.

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Without BloodAlessandro Baricco

Discussed reading Senza Sangue and adapting it for the screen; English translation catalogued for identification.

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The Clash and opera

Described a move from punk toward opera while discussing Maria.