Source: Speak Up
Language level: Advanced
Speaker: Chunk Rolando
ANGELINA JOLIE MY NAME IS SALT
Angelina Jolie is currently one of the world’s most famous people. This is partly due to her impressive movie career and partly due to her private life. She and her partner, Brad Pitt, are so well known that they are often referred to as ‘Brangelina.” Although they have only been together for five years, they already have six children, three of whom are adopted.
Brad and Angelina are not technically married, but both are divorcees. Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston, while Jolie was married first to Jonny Lee Miller and then to Billy Bob Thornton. These are actors, as is Jolie’s father, Jon Voight.
Yet there were no questions about her private life when Angelina Jolie met with the press to talk about her most recent movie, Salt, in which she has the starring role. She plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who goes on the run when she is accused of being a Russian spy. Ms. Jolie was asked what had attracted her to the role.
Angelina Jolie
(Standard American accent)
I’d done action movies before but I’d never done one based on reality. And when we started to talk about it, we realized there really hadn’t been one with a woman and that was very strange to me. And so it felt like kind of uncharted territory that would be fun to try to explore and…and a good challenge. I’d also…hadn’t worked for a year-and-a half and I’d had two babies and I felt very “mommy.” And I was sitting in my nightgown reading the script with the baby cribs and everything and I started to flip through it and read about jumping off trucks and though. “You know, that night be really good for me right now! And I think it would be a good balance. I think it would be good to…”so the physical part of it felt like a really smart thing to do, just to get out and get moving again.
FEMININITY
In the past a CIA agent on the run would probably have been played by a man. Did the fact that it was played by a woman add to the excitement?
Angelina Jolie
I don’t know. I think because it’s new, it’s going to be exciting. If it was the first time it was a man, it would have been exciting, maybe. We made a point not to use her sexuality, or her femininity, in the film, in ways that are usually, you know, that is usually done in films with women, especially in this kind of genre. And I don’t think the film’s lacking in any way for it. So, I think that was a conscious choice we made, to not let it become anything other than a really good spy movie with a tough spy, who happens to be a woman!
THE REAL THING
As part of her research for the role. Ms. Jolie spent some time with a real female. CIA agent. Presumably this had helped.
Angelina Jolie
A lot. Part of it was just meeting her. You know, this idea of, I think, in movies we think we’re going to play a tough CIA girl: what’s it going to be?And what’s she going to look like? And then you meet her and she’s so lovely and she's so elegant and she's against any stereotype of some obvious tough woman. So that immediately helped me kind of…transitioned into what I was allowed to do. We had long talks about the inability to talk to anybody in your family about what your daily life was and what your job was and how isolating that was and how lonely that was. And only when you’re retired are you able to really discuss your life and what a huge relief that is. The idea that it would take you 20 years until you’re able to have a real conversation with your husband over dinner, you know, and not lie and not hide something – is an extraordinary sacrifice that all these people make. And it makes for a very specific type of personality. So I drew mostly from that.
CROSS-DRESSING
At one stage the fugitive Evelyn Salt even dresses up as a man. This was certainly a challenge.
Angelina Jolie
It was a lot of fun. I’ve never done that before. It’s always fun to do things you’ve never done. You know, it’s this odd…cause then you actually start to really think about what is my man what is my internal man? You start to get really particular about know he does his hair, or what kind of an outfit he would wear, or this…it’s just bizarre, and then, when I dressed up and when I walked on set for the first time, the crew was so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable! The guys didn’t want to stand near me, you know, just kept staring at me, but like…you know, stayed away from me. The girls kind of…some of them, I think, thought I was cute! But, you know, kind of also didn’t know what to do, like it was just it was just the most unusual feeling, but the only thing to do was to just kind of really get into it and enjoy it, or else you’d feel awkward. So I just got fully into it and…and loved hanging out as him.
