Angelina Jolie: Living the Adventure

When you think of big lips, it's either Rolling Stones classic singer Mick Jagger or hot actress Angelina Jolie. She is one of the few women in Hollywood whose smoochable mouth hasn't been enhanced by Botox. Most fans know the gorgeous brunette as Tomb Raider's Lara Croft but look for her to play Colin Farrell's mom (when he was a kid of course) in the upcoming mega-epic Alexander then she'll cozy-up with Brad Pitt in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and be the voice of a sexy "fish-fatale" in the animated Shark Tale.

Like Kim Basinger, busy Angelina is another gorgeous, shapely actress with Academy Award ability and an awareness of social causes. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Girl, Interrupted opposite Winona Ryder. Many film fans just remember their "odd-couple" reaction when this looker hooked up with talented but weird Billy Bob Thornton. Most of us are aware of her humanitarian efforts. After adopting her Cambodian son Maddox, the actress has been a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for Refugees.

Jolie looked very movie-star hot when we talked with her at Beverly Hills' 4 Seasons hotel recently on behalf of her appearance in the wild retro Sci-Fi adventure film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in which she plays a feisty flight squadron commander...with an eyepatch! The actress appeared in a tight, nearly backless, off the shoulder stretch top and jeans. When she turned around we caught the top half of a very detailed tattoo on her lower back. Her hair, thank God, has abandoned that Morticia Adams all black vibe and is now brown with nifty gold highlights. She polished off the whole look with long dangle earrings which bounced around when she responded to our questions...

TeenHollywood: How tricky was it for you to act in an entire movie against only a blue screen where the set and effects will go in later?

Angelina: It was a bit strange. I think that Jude [Law] and Gwyneth [Paltrow] had it worse because they had things coming at them that they were freaking out about, and I just had ships coming in behind me. There was one moment where I had the bubble on (helmet) and the eye patch and I was just sitting on a box. And I wasn't in a plane. I wasn't anywhere. I was just sitting and there was a room full of a hundred people and my accent had to be very cool and I was just sitting on this cardboard box pretending that I was sitting on something completely different.

TeenHollywood: Did that make you feel silly?

Angelina: At first it felt very silly and then I think that it's great to get back to what's fun about this business. It's creative and you try things that aren't safe and be silly again and be bold with your choices. So it was nice. It was refreshing.

TeenHollywood: How did they do the scene in the film where you are in and out of the water in your ship?

Angelina: That was me on my box. That was me with the plastic, big bubble on my head that we kept having to wipe because it kept getting fingerprints on it. Yeah. I was just actually sitting on a box pretending to be doing all of that. I felt very weird.

TeenHollywood: Did you build a backstory as to how your character Franky lost her eye?

Angelina: Well, she always had one eye, but I did love that about her. We had talked about a backstory. I think that the idea is that if this works well, there will be that in a prequel possibly (explaining the eye loss).

TeenHollywood: Was it weird wearing the patch? Did you have any problems with it?

Angelina: I did. Yeah. There's a kind of dizziness and an awkwardness when you're standing, but also anytime the other actors were talking to me, they would come up and you can't see someone sneaking up behind you or to that side and at the end of the day you'd take it off and you'd have this (weird feeling). It's like first thing in the morning when you open one eye. It's not that bad.

TeenHollywood: When you first came to the "Sky Captain" project, how did you know what it was going to look like?

Angelina: When I was first asked to do it, Jude and Jon Avnet came to visit me and they brought this five minute secret thing and they showed that to me. So I had an idea of what it was going to look like and things like that. Kerry [Conran, the writer/director] had worked it out so it was almost as if you could watch the movie with these little animated things moving and these little planes. It's a very weird process.

TeenHollywood: Was it your character or the story or effects that drew you to the project?

Angelina: I just thought that, as an artist, it was something that was original and hadn't been done before. So it was kind of a brave place to be. When you do films these days, you just lose that sense of fun and adventure and 'Lets try something that hasn't been done before.' So for that, just to be a part of it was exciting, but I did love my character.

TeenHollywood: Why do you think that sense of adventure gets lost in the movie business?

Angelina: I think that so much of things are analyzed and criticized and how much is box office or whether (a film) is viewed this way or that. There are few great movies that are really pushing the art. There's a pretty solid story, and here are a few little twists that make it different, but that's it. You're not really taking the art form to a new level. You're not trying for something bold or different. It's because of studios and how much the business has affected the art sometimes. There are few that push past that. You need to somehow raise the money and get people behind it and say, 'Okay, lets do something that we're not sure of.'

TeenHollywood: As an actor, it must be more satisfying to play a complicated woman than more of a comic book character.

Angelina: I loved doing Alexander, and I think that as an actor, it's more fulfilling. It has a soul and you be this woman and you can go through so many different emotions and you can analyze yourself and the world and your relationships and so when you're done with that film you feel like you've really grown and changed. So I like that.

TeenHollywood: Wasn't it hard working with a demanding director like Oliver Stone?

Angelina: It was just that he expects everything. You can't really come in and say, 'I don't feel like, or I'm not sure of or I'd like to change this or give me a few more minutes to get in this place.' He wanted us all to live as our characters and he'd get upset if I lost my accent when we were out to dinner. My first shot in the studio, I had the six year old Alexander and I had to sing and hold this python and try to get the python around this boy's neck and convince him not to be afraid. On your first day! It was getting late and I had to switch snakes in the basket and put the other one in there and they were getting kind of wild and they said, 'It's nighttime and they think it's time to feed,' and I said, 'Oliver, it's nighttime and apparently it's feeding time.' He was like, 'Oh, just get in there.'

TeenHollywood: Eeeek! But, she's a strong woman. Aren't there less take-charge roles available to women than to men?

Angelina: Well, I've been very, very lucky. I've found films that could be one way and I think that you can work to make them more. I think that we can always kind of wish that there was more of something for ethnicities, for men, for women, but I think that we all just have to focus on more just trying to get a hold of the character and see if we can make it deeper. And I have been very lucky with the women I've been able to play.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk about who or what you play in the animated Shark Tale?

Angelina: (big grin) I'm the bad fish. My mom actually said that. 'Why are you the bad fish, honey?' It's been an amazing process. To do an animated film is a very different experience. I think that the first time I did it, I was just trying to make voices and I hate my own voice. Like most people, you listen to yourself on the phone or an answering machine and you're like, 'Ugh.' And so to do something with just your voice is hard. I felt safer changing my voice, but they didn't let me. They wanted my voice.

TeenHollywood: Isn't it hard to play "the bad fish" if you don't know what she's going to look like in the film?

Angelina: Well, when I was invited in to meet with them on Shark Tale, they brought me into this room and there were all these different pictures of fish [on the walls]. They were going to explain to me what they wanted me to do and I kind of looked around and I saw this fish that I could see Will [Smith] doing. And I looked at this other fish and then I saw this fish with this big red mouth and pointy eyebrows and I thought, 'They can talk as long as they want. I know that I'm that fish.' That was my fish. So I saw her immediately and I knew it and I liked her. It was me just kind of filling those shoes because they had made her very sparkly, sexy. So yeah, she came first.

TeenHollywood: Okay, from sexy fish to Catherine the Great. We hear you would like to play her.

Angelina: I love those historical characters. But I do think that they need to be done right which is why it's never been a situation where I'm certainly doing that. The more I've researched her the more I think that her story is very complicated. And so I get nervous that it could be done wrong. I take it seriously especially if it's a whole people's country or a people's hero. To step into that and say, 'Okay I'm going to be this woman that you revere or respect or like or dislike, she's a part of your history.' And I just take that more seriously. I want to make sure that it's how people see her. I'm fascinated by those kind of women. Olympias was that kind of a woman in Alexander. She wasn't everyone's favorite woman. She was a bit dark, but I still wanted to try and respect who I thought she was.

TeenHollywood: Where do you think you get your strength from? You're a very strong woman.

Angelina: I think that I was raised by mother to be very honest and very straightforward, and I don't judge people. I love people when they are exactly who they are and they're straightforward about it and they're coming at me with whatever that is. I'm not comfortable with the other. I was always encouraged to be a hundred percent just whatever it is I am. As long as you don't hurt anyone, just be very straightforward in this life. Maybe because I've gone through, like we all have, different things be it my parents or that I'm a parent now or traveling the world and seeing that there is real pain and that there are things to be really frightened of and really emotional about. The things that I live with on a daily basis are not those things. So I tend not to be scared of things that are just not as serious.

TeenHollywood: You do so much good charity work. Why are you so driven to help?

Angelina: I think that it's just that I've seen a lot. I think that if more people saw more things, they wouldn't be able to really help themselves. I wouldn't feel right about the money that I earn if I wasn't generous with it. I think that it's not a big deal for me to be generous with it. And the money it would cost here to buy another car could be building two schools. So it's an easy choice that makes me very happy.

TeenHollywood: There's a lot of fighting around the world. Do you think you could be a soldier if you had to?

Angelina: I could fight. If I believed in what I was fighting for, of course I could. But I'd have to support the war.

TeenHollywood: Are you into the get out the vote effort for this important U.S. election?

Angelina: Yeah. I've talked to people about doing that. Because I've been involved in Washington. I'm just being very cautious with who I decide to do it with or who I mix politics with. I want to make sure that if I do it, I'm doing it with people who are coming from a great place and we've all educated ourselves properly and that we know what we're doing. Absolutely though, yeah. I think that celebrities and everyone are just sort of finding their way to see what they can do.

Angelina: Life inspires me. My son inspires me. I just want to live a very full life. I love making films and I'm very fortunate that I get to do them and I love being creative in this form. There was a time when I think that I lived through my characters and I've now found that I prefer my life. I'd like to die feeling that I have been useful as a person and done as much as I could with my life and explored cultures and peoples and lands and raised a family. So that's all I want to do and in between that I have this wonderful job that I'd like to enjoy.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.