Angelina Jolie on Family, Film & Philanthropy | Vicki Woods & Mario Testino | Vogue US Dec 2010
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It’s not often that I sit down to read about Angelina Jolie and Google the writer. One hundred words into the Vicki Woods interview with Angelina Jolie in Vogue US, I said “who is this chick?”
Sorry, I should know, but the writer’s fame escaped me. Browsing other Woods musings, I can see that she and Jolie would connect.
We learn that Jolie had great chemistry with Johnny Depp, so fabulous that his partner Vanessa Paradis insisted that a steamy shower scene be dropped from ‘The Tourist’. This topic wasn’t part of the Jolie-Woods girl talk, but has wafted through cyberspace in the last week.
Given Angelina Jolie’s steadfast commitment to family, film and philanthropy, we hoped the man-stealing reputation had died down.
Woods paints a colorful, full-bodied woman, rather Matisse-like, vision of Jolie, who is a core Smart Sensuality inspiring woman for Anne of Carversville. In fact, I wrote my first essay on Sunday morning in Carversville, reading the Angelina Jolie Esquire essay, an interview that moved me to action.
We do learn that Angelina Jolie has a ‘seriously filthy laugh.’ Why bloggers didn’t go for this detail, rather than Shiloh’s interest in a dead bird beats the heck out of me.
Perhaps I’m just at peace with Jolie’s intense physicality and sensuality. So is Vicki Woods, but what do you want from a British woman who used to hang out with Mike Tyson. We sense that Jolie could have even asked for Vicki Woods to do the interview. Clearly, she trusts the writer.
Angelina Jolie is explaining why she took the role of Elise Clifton-Ward, the woman of mystery who captivates Johnny Depp in The Tourist, which opens this month. It’s because she plans things. “I was looking for a very short thing to do before Brad started filming [Moneyball],” she says. “And I said I needed something that shoots not too long, in a nice location for my family. Somebody said there’s a script that’s been around, and it shoots in Venice and Paris. And I said, ‘Is it a character I haven’t played before?’ And they said, ‘Yes, it’s a lady.’ ” She laughs: Uhhuhhuhhehhehheh. via Vogue US
We learn that Angelina Jolie is a planner, a futuristic, forward-thinking intellect, an incredibly-organized woman. All the ‘she’s got nannies’ comments in the tabloids ignore the reality that Angelina Jolie probably runs laps around the rest of us, when the subject is strategic thinking about her life, her love and her children.
Jolie radiates competency and self-discipline in the art of living. Yes, she is gloriously beautiful, but her graceful style and stature is self-defining.
Anyone who has tracked her philanthropy and global political activism, knows that Angelina Jolie is selfless in executing her duties for the UN, most recently trekking into northern Pakistan in support of flood victims.
The actress wears black almost exclusively and has a small closet. Let me not make her smaller than her larger-than-life reputation. Woods describes Jolie’s arrival for the interview at the Roosevelt Hotel in LA, where the actress arrived 10 minutes early. Now that’s organization!
As my (Vicki Woods) driver hurtled us into the hotel car park, access was blocked by two vans flanking an SUV—clearly containing a VVIP—and all I could do was watch the little figure being swooshed up, wafted aloft, and delivered inside by burly escorts. Everyone stood in line to gaze, like parlormaids in Gosford Park.
We read about the homes, the kids, all the lovely details we enjoy hearing about Angelina Jolie’s life.
We leave her in Pakistan and her reflections on global security issues. Woods writes what we’ve observed, too. Angelina Jolie approached her UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador job, hers since 2001, as if it was her day job.
Asked if it isn’t tough trying to raise money for Pakistan, Jolie responds: “If you are concerned about security in the world, the last thing you want to do is not give your support to Pakistan and Afghanistan, because that’s the most dangerous thing. That’s the least intelligent thing, as far as I’m concerned, to do.”
Enjoy plenty more juicy bits from Vogue, and check out Vicki Woods. Anne
More reading:
Angelina Jolie & Alicia Keys Help Me Say ‘Flip It: I’m A Lipstick-Wearing Activist’
Anne’s first Anne of Carversville essay:
