Angelina Jolie tackles a role very different from the strong female characters we’ve come to expect from the Academy Award-winning actress in The Good Shepherd, directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon. Jolie plays the subservient wife of one of the first CIA agents, a woman who must hold her tongue while her family is being twisted apart.
'Clover' is a very protective mother. How does being a mom in real life inform your performance in The Good Shepherd?
“Actually that is the one thing that kept me grounded to her and connected to her, because there was so much about her I didn't identify with. But her love and her commitment to her son and certainly, having lost her own family to this world of the CIA and now her husband… And the fear that her son would get involved in this kind of dangerous, silent world and that becoming a reality, and how that would feel. So, yeah, in particular fighting for him - it was very personal.”
Could you imagine sitting back and watching all these events that affect your family unfold without saying anything?
“No, but so much of that film for me was a study in that kind of restraint. I live in a time - we all do - where as a woman, I can say, ‘I'm leaving. I'm getting a divorce. You tell me what's going on.’ Or even speaking in a manner that's much harsher without it being the ugliest thing in the (world), you know? She had to maintain a certain kind of composure, quiet decency, [and] just settle into that life. It was that time and the CIA… The idea of getting out was just impossible as a woman. (Laughing) So it was very hard because everything instinctually in me was [opposite of that].”
How difficult was it for you to play a rejected, unloved wife?
“I think it's actually easier to play that kind of stuff when you do have a balanced home. Because I think if I did have alcoholism in my personal life or my mother or somebody close to me, if I did have that experience, it might have been much more uncomfortable to get in there. And that kind of relationship with a man…I've never had that in my life because I've always married artists, so they're always a very talkative and expressive bunch. It was just bizarre, but it was part of the character which was interesting, because she did feel lost and she did feel trapped and confused - and so I did as well.”
You normally play strong characters so what attracted you to the role of Clover?
“I do see her in the end as being as strong as a woman could be at that time. But I did like that there were many things about her that were broken, and often I don't get to play that part. I think that's why it took a while for Bob [De Niro] to — for us to be able to decide that I should play that part because she is more subservient. She is more vulnerable; she is very broken. As an actress it was a great challenge and as a woman, as much as there are certain things in my life I do feel strong about, there's pieces of me that are broken.”
Why did Robert De Niro need convincing?
“I think he needed to understand that I really knew her, and my intentions for how I would play her were accurate. He's very specific to every detail of this film. He's aware of and he cares about [everything]. I think I'm a very modern woman - if I thought of it - in a very modern way. Even at the beginning she's very light and silly in a way I don't usually portray, either. A lot about her was not something that he could obviously see that I was capable of doing. So I think he had to know that I understood her. We talked about it a lot to make sure he did.”
Robert De Niro did say that he thought you connected with her.
“I think that kind of feeling alone, I didn't necessarily feel that in a marriage per se but in my life, I've often felt… She's surrounded by a lot of people, there are a lot of secrets, a lot of quiet, a lot of people just accepting, and as much as she's broken and she's that person, she's also the only person that is desperate to scream out and try to get some reaction, something honest — something — and I've found that in my life a lot. I tend to want to be that person that I can't tolerate, and it would break me. I would start drinking or something terrible if I was in a situation where I was surrounded by lies or quiet or secrets, you know, not just a real life.”
How did you feel about seeing yourself aged in the film? Did it make you think about aging gracefully in real life?
“My mom is aging gracefully, so if I'm anything like my mother…she's lovely.
I love age on a face. I know in this business, there's not a
lot of leverage for the way people have an opinion about how people should look
or how people should [age]. But I personally love it, and I love to age in movies.
I love to see my face old in different ways. I actually feel there's something very comforting about feeling yourself as an older woman. You just know that when you get to that point, you're going to have earned so many different things and be rooted in so many different ways that it seems there's kind of a comfort to it.
But Clover was a little different because I hopefully will not break apart as she did. She had these big yellow contacts and yellow teeth. You may not have noticed it but I had the alcohol age, if you look closely with her. There are a lot of broken capillaries and a lot of yellow. That wasn't looking in the mirror and saying, 'I'll look like this.’ This is what I will look like if I start drinking.”
Page 2: Angelina Jolie on Research, Celebrity Life, and Her Charitable Work
