Early work: 1982; 1991–1997
When
she was seven years old, Jolie had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out
(1982), a movie co-written by and starring her father, Jon Voight. She committed to acting at the age of 16, but
initially found it difficult to pass auditions, often being told that she was
"too dark."[15] She appeared in five of her brother's student
films, made while he attended the USC School of
Cinema-Television, as well as in several music videos, namely Lenny Kravitz's "Stand by My Woman" (1991), Antonello Venditti's
"Alta Marea" (1991), The Lemonheads's "It's About Time" (1993), and Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll
Dreams Come Through" (1993). She began to learn from her
father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them.
Their relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing
that they were both "drama queens."[13]
Jolie
began her professional film career in 1993, when she played her first leading
role in the low-budget, straight-to-video science-fiction sequel Cyborg 2, as Casella "Cash" Reese, a
near-human robot, designed to seduce her way into a rival manufacturer's
headquarters and then self-detonate. Jolie was so disappointed with the film
that she did not audition again for a year.[15] Following a supporting role in the independent film
Without Evidence (1995), Jolie starred as Kate
"Acid Burn" Libby in her first Hollywood picture, Hackers (1995). The New York Times
wrote, "Kate (Angelina Jolie) stands out. That's because she scowls even
more sourly than [her co-stars] and is that rare female hacker who sits
intently at her keyboard in a see-through top. Despite her sullen posturing,
which is all this role requires, Ms. Jolie has the sweetly cherubic looks of
her father, Jon Voight."[25] The movie failed to make a profit at the box
office, but developed a cult following after its video release.[26]
She
next appeared in the 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is,
a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among two rival Italian family
restaurant owners in The Bronx, New York. In the road movie Mojave Moon (1996) she played a young woman who falls
for Danny Aiello's middle-aged character, while he develops
feelings for her mother, played by Anne Archer. That same year, Jolie also portrayed Margret
"Legs" Sadovsky, one of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond
in the film Foxfire after they
beat up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. The Los Angeles Times
wrote about her performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this
character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to
overcome the stereotype. Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the
subject and the catalyst."[27]
In
1997, Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the
thriller Playing God, set in
the Los Angeles underworld. The movie was not well-received by critics; Roger Ebert noted that "Angelina Jolie finds a certain
warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too
nice to be [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is."[28] She then appeared in the television film True Women (1997), a historical romantic drama set in the
American West and based on the book by Janice Woods Windle. That
year, she also appeared as a stripper in the music video for "Anybody Seen My Baby?"
by the Rolling Stones.
Breakthrough: 1998–2000
Jolie's
career prospects began to improve after she won a Golden Globe Award for her
performance in TNT's George Wallace
(1997). She portrayed Cornelia Wallace, the
second wife of Alabama Governor George Wallace, played by Gary Sinise. The film was very well-received by critics and
won, among other awards, the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film.
Jolie also received an Emmy Award nomination for
her performance.
In
1998, Jolie starred in HBO's Gia,
portraying supermodel Gia Carangi. The film
chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a result of her addiction
to heroin, and her decline and death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. Vanessa Vance
from Reel.com noted, "Angelina Jolie gained wide recognition for her role
as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her
portrayal—filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation—and her role in
this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed."[29] For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden
Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award.
In
accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting, Jolie preferred to stay in character in between
scenes during many of her early films, and as a result had gained a reputation
for being difficult to deal with. While shooting Gia, she told her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller that she would not be able to phone him:
"I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you
for weeks.'"[30] After Gia
wrapped in 1997, Jolie
announced that she had given up acting for good, because she felt that she had
"nothing else to give."[31] She separated from Miller and moved to New York,
where she enrolled at New York University to
study filmmaking and attend writing classes; she later described it as
"just good for me to collect myself."[31] Encouraged by her Golden Globe Award win for George Wallace and the positive
critical reception of Gia, she
resumed her career.[15]
Jolie
returned to film in the 1998 gangster movie Hell's Kitchen.
Later that year, she appeared in Playing by Heart, part of an ensemble cast that
included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe, and Jon Stewart. The film received predominantly positive reviews,
and Jolie was praised in particular. The San Francisco Chronicle
wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the
desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble."[32] Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award from
the National Board
of Review of Motion Pictures.
In
1999, she starred in the comedy-drama Pushing Tin, alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. The film received a mixed reception from critics,
and Jolie's character—Thornton's seductive wife—was particularly criticized. The Washington Post
wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie) [is] a completely ludicrous writer's
creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die,
wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire
nights away from home."[33] She then co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector (1999),
an adaptation of a crime novel by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played a police officer haunted by her
cop father's suicide, who reluctantly helps Washington track down a serial
killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide,[8] but was a critical failure. The Detroit Free Press
concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and
woefully miscast."[34]
"Jolie is emerging as one of the
great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly
aim."
—Roger Ebert on Jolie's performance in Girl, Interrupted
(1999)[35]
Jolie
next took the supporting role of the sociopathic mental
patient Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted
(1999), an adaptation of author Susanna Kaysen's memoir of the same name. While Winona Ryder played the main character in what was hoped to be
a comeback for her, the film instead marked Jolie's final breakthrough in
Hollywood.[36] She won her third Golden Globe Award, her second
Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Academy Award
for Best Supporting Actress. Variety noted,
"Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to
be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation."[37]
In
2000, Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster, Gone In 60 Seconds,
in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, the ex-girlfriend of car
thief Nicolas Cage. The role was small, and The Washington Post criticized that "all she does in this
movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating
muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth."[38] She later explained that the film had been a
welcome relief after the emotionally heavy role of Lisa Rowe. It became her
highest grossing movie up until then, earning $237 million internationally.[8]
International success: 2001–present
Although
highly regarded for her acting abilities, Jolie's films to date had often not
appealed to a wide audience, but Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
(2001) made her an international superstar. An adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider
videogame, Jolie was required to learn an English accent and undergo extensive
martial arts training to play the title role of Lara Croft. She was generally praised for her physical
performance, but the movie generated mostly negative reviews. Slant commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play
Lara Croft but [director] Simon West makes her
journey into a game of Frogger."[ The movie was
an international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide, and
launched her global reputation as a female action star.
Jolie
then starred opposite Antonio Banderas as his
mail-order bride in Original Sin
(2001), a thriller based on the novel Waltz
into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich. The film
was a major critical failure, with The
New York Times noting, "The story plunges more precipitously than
Ms. Jolie's neckline."[40] In 2002, she starred in Life or Something Like It
as an ambitious television reporter who is told that she will die in a week.
The film was poorly received by critics, though Jolie's performance received
positive reviews. CNN's Paul Clinton wrote,
"Jolie is excellent in her role. Despite some of the ludicrous plot points
in the middle of the film, this Academy Award-winning actress is exceedingly
believable in her journey towards self-discovery and the true meaning of
fulfilling life."[41]
Jolie
reprised her role as Lara Croft in Lara Croft
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), which established her
among Hollywood's highest-paid actresses.[7] The sequel was not as lucrative as the original,
earning $156 million at the international box office.[8] She appeared in the music video for Korn's
"Did My Time," which was used to promote the film. She
next starred in Beyond Borders (2003), as a socialite who joins aid
workers in Africa and Asia. The film reflected Jolie's real-life interest in
promoting humanitarian relief, but it was critically and financially
unsuccessful. The Los Angeles Times
wrote, "Jolie, as she did in her Oscar-winning role in Girl, Interrupted, can bring
electricity and believability to roles that have a reality she can understand.
She can also, witness the Lara Croft
films, do acknowledged cartoons. But the limbo of a hybrid character, a badly
written cardboard person in a fly-infested, blood-and-guts world, completely
defeats her."[42]
In
2004, Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the
thriller Taking Lives. She portrayed an FBI profiler summoned to
help Montreal law enforcement hunt down a serial killer. The movie received
mixed reviews and The Hollywood Reporter
concluded, "Angelina Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like
something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of
excitement and glamour."[43] She also provided the voice of the angelfish Lola
in the DreamWorks animated movie Shark Tale (2004), and had a brief appearance in Sky Captain
and the World of Tomorrow (2004), a science fiction adventure
film shot entirely with actors in front of a bluescreen. That same year, Jolie played Olympias in Alexander, about
the life of Alexander the Great. The
film failed domestically, which director Oliver Stone attributed to disapproval of the depiction of
Alexander's bisexuality,[44] but it succeeded internationally, with revenue of
$139 million outside the United States.[8]
Jolie
then starred opposite Brad Pitt in the 2005 action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith,
which tells the story of a bored married couple, John and Jane Smith, who find
out that they are both secret assassins. The film received mixed reviews, but
was generally lauded for the chemistry between the two leads. The Star Tribune noted, "While the story feels
haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the
stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry."[45] The movie earned $478 million worldwide, making it
the seventh-highest grossing film of 2005.[46]
Jolie as Christine Collins on the set of Changeling in 2007
Jolie
next appeared in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd
(2006), a film about the early history of the CIA, as seen through the eyes of
Edward Wilson, an officer based on James Jesus Angleton and
played by Matt Damon. Jolie played the supporting role of Margaret
"Clover" Russell, Wilson's neglected wife. According to the Chicago Tribune, "Jolie ages convincingly
throughout, and is blithely unconcerned with how her brittle character is
coming off in terms of audience sympathy."[47]
In
2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary A Place in Time, which captures daily
life in 27 locations around the world during a single week. The film was
screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and
was intended for distribution to high schools through the National Education
Association.[48] Jolie then starred as Mariane Pearl in the documentary-style drama A Mighty Heart
(2007). Based on Pearl's memoir of the same name,
the film chronicles the kidnapping and murder of her husband, The Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan.
The Hollywood Reporter
described Jolie's performance as "well-measured and moving," played
"with respect and a firm grasp on a difficult accent."[49] Jolie was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a
Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. She also played Grendel's mother in the animated epic Beowulf (2007),
which was created through the motion capture technique.
Jolie
co-starred alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in the 2008 action movie Wanted, an
adaptation of Mark Millar's graphic novel of the same name. The film received
predominately favorable reviews and proved an international success, earning
$342 million worldwide.[8] She also provided the voice of Master Tigress
in the DreamWorks animated movie Kung Fu Panda (2008). With revenue of $632 million
internationally, it became the third-highest grossing film of 2008.[50] That same year, Jolie took on the lead role in Clint Eastwood's drama Changeling.[51] Based in part on the Wineville Chicken Coop
Murders, the film stars Jolie as Christine Collins, who is reunited with her kidnapped son in
1928 Los Angeles—only to realize the boy is an impostor. The Chicago Tribune noted, "Jolie
really shines in the calm before the storm, the scenes [...] when one
patronizing male authority figure after another belittles her at their peril."[52] Jolie received nominations for an Academy Award, a
Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a BAFTA Award.
Jolie on the Salt panel at the San Diego Comic-Con in
2010
Jolie
next starred in the 2010 thriller Salt, her first
film in two years. She starred alongside Liev Schreiber as CIA agent Evelyn Salt, who goes on the run
after she is accused of being a KGB sleeper agent. Originally written as male, the character Salt
underwent a gender change after a Colombia Pictures executive suggested Jolie for the role to
director Phillip Noyce. The film
was an international success with revenue of $294 million.[8] It received mixed to positive reviews, with Jolie's
performance earning praise; Empire remarked,
"When it comes to selling incredible, crazy, death-defying antics, Jolie
has few peers in the action business."[53] She also starred opposite Johnny Depp in The Tourist (2010),
which was a major critical failure. Peter Travers wrote, "Depp and Jolie hit career lows,
producing the chemistry of high-fashion zombies."[54] After a slow start at the domestic box office, the
film went on to gross $278 million worldwide.[8] Jolie received a controversial Golden Globe Award
nomination, which was speculated to have been given merely to ensure her
high-profile presence at the awards ceremony.[55][56]
In
2011, Jolie reprised her voice role as Master Tigress in the animated
DreamWorks sequel Kung Fu Panda 2. It became the fourth-highest grossing
film of 2011 and Jolie's highest grossing film to date, earning $666 million at
the international box office.[8][57] She also made her directorial feature debut with In the Land of Blood and
Honey (2011), a love story between a Serb soldier and a
Bosniak prisoner of war, set during the 1992–95 Bosnian War. Jolie, who had twice visited Bosnia-Herzegovina
in her capacity as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador,
explained that she made the film to rekindle attention for the survivors of a
war that took place in recent history.[58] The film, which Jolie also scripted and
co-produced, aroused both praise and criticism in the Balkans; the response
from Bosniak war-victims advocacy organizations was "overwhelmingly positive,"[59] while a Serb war prisoners group decried the film
for its alleged anti-Serb bias.[60] In the
Land of Blood and Honey won the Stanley Kramer Award
from the Producers Guild of America,
which honors films that highlight provocative social issues.[61] It also received a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Jolie
will play the Disney villain Maleficent in the upcoming
film of the same name, where the
character's background story will be revealed.
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