Angelina Jolie

At 49 years old, Angelina Jolie has this physical status:

Angelina Jolie (née Voight, formerly Jolie Pitt), born June 4, 1975, is an American actress, director, and humanitarian.

She has been named Hollywood's highest-paid actress multiple times as a recipient of Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. Jolie made her film debut as a child in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), and her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget film Hackers (1995).

She appeared in the critically acclaimed biographical cable films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and she received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), her starring role as the video game heroine Lara Croft, established her as a leading Hollywood actress.

She continued her action-star work with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), and Salt (2010), and has received critical acclaim for her role in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Maleficent (2014), she had her best commercial success.

Jolie moved from directing, screenwriting, and producing with the war dramas In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), Unbroken (2014), and First They Killed My Father (2017). Jolie has received a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and was named an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, among other accolades, in addition to her film career.

She advocates for various causes, including conservation, education, and women's rights, and is best known for her advocacy on behalf of refugees as a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR). Jolie has been dubbed one of the most influential and influential individuals in the American entertainment industry as a public figure.

She was cited as the world's most beautiful woman by various media outlets for a number of years, and her personal life has garnered a lot of attention.

Jonny Lee Miller, Billy Bob Thornton, and Brad Pitt are divorced; she and Pitt have six children together, three of whom were adopted internationally.

Early life and family

Angelina Jolie Voight was born in Los Angeles, California, on June 4, 1975, to actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the niece of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor, as well as volcanologist and volcanologist Barry Voight. Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell, her godparents, are also actors. Jolie is of German and Slovak descent, on her father's side, although her mother was of French-Canadian ancestry. Jolie has claimed to have partial Indigenous (Iroquois) ancestry.

Following her parents' separation in 1976, she and her brother lived with their mother, who had to refocus on raising her children. Jolie's mother raised her as a Catholic but did not insist that she attend church. She used to watch films with her mother as a child, and it was this, rather than her father's lucrative careers, that sparked her interest in acting, though she did play a small part in Voight's Lookin' to Get Out (1982) at age seven. Bertrand and her live-in partner, filmmaker Bill Day, and her family relocating to Palisades, New York, five years later. Jolie then decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in numerous stage productions.

Jolie first attended Beverly Hills High School, where she became isolated among the children of some of the area's wealthy families because her mother lived on a more modest budget. Other students teased her for being overweight and wearing glasses and braces. Her first attempts at modeling, at her mother's request, were fruitless. She then enrolled in Moreno High School, an alternative school, where she became a "punk stranger" wearing all-black clothing, going out for moshing, and engaging in knife competition with her live-in boyfriend. She dropped out of her acting lessons and aspired to be a funeral director by attending at-home courses to learn embalming. Jolie graduated from high school and rented her own apartment before returning to theater school at age 16, but she continued to be "I am still at heart" and will continue to be "just a punk kid with tattoos," she wrote after the break.

Jolie found it difficult to connect with others as a teenager, and as a result, she was self-harmed, and later wrote, "For some reason, the act of cutting myself and feeling the pain, as well as feeling alive, felt some kind of release, was somehow therapeutic to me." She also struggled with insomnia and an eating disorder and began using opioids; by the age 20, she had used "just about every drug possible," particularly heroin. Jolie suffered with depression and attempted suicide twice, first at the age of 19 and then at 22, when she attempted to hire a hitman to kill her. She had a nervous breakdown when she was 24 years old and was admitted for 72 hours to UCLA Medical Center's psychiatric ward. Jolie found meaning in her life two years after having adopted her first child: "I knew once I committed to Maddox, I would never be self-destructive again."

Jolie has had a troubled relationship with her father, beginning when Voight left the family when his daughter was less than a year old. She has said that their time together from then on was sporadic and that they were usually carried out in front of the camera. When they met together in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), they reminisced, but their friendship soon soured. Jolie's petition petitioned the court to constitutionally ban her surname, Voight, in favour of her middle name, which she had long used as a stage name; the name change was approved on September 12, 2002. During an appearance on Access Hollywood in which Jolie had "serious mental problems," the actor opened their displeasure. At this time, she and her brother broke off contact with him. They didn't speak for six or a half years, but started rebuilding their friendship in the aftermath of Bertrand's death from ovarian cancer on January 27, 2007, before going public with their reconciliation three years later.

Personal life

Jolie had a serious boyfriend for two years from the age of 14. Her mother encouraged them to live in her house, but Jolie later said, "I was either going to be irresponsible on the streets with my boyfriend, or he was going to be with me in my bedroom with my mom in the next room." She made the choice, and because of it, I continued to go to school every morning and discovered my first friendship in a safe manner." She likes the relationship to a marriage in terms of emotional intensity, and she says the break forced her to dedicate herself to her acting work at age 16.

Jolie had a romance with actor Jonny Lee Miller, her first love since the marriage in her early teen years, during the filming of Hackers (1995). They were not in touch for months after production ended, but they reconnected and married shortly after in March 1996. She attended her wedding in black rubber pants and a white T-shirt, on which she had written the groom's name in her blood. Despite the fact that the friendship ended early in the year, Jolie remained on good terms with Miller, who described her as "a trustworthy man and a good friend." Jolie's divorce, which started in February 1999, was finalized just after she remarried next year.

On the set of Foxfire (1996), Jolie began a friendship with model and actress Jenny Shimizu prior to her marriage to Miller. "I would certainly have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband," she said in 1997. "I fell in love with her for the first time the first time." And when Jolie was romantically involved with other people, their relationship lasted several years and continued, according to Shimizu. She was asked how she felt about being a sex symbol to both men and women in a 1997 interview with lesbian magazine Girlfriends, and she responded "It's wonderful because I love both men and women." "Of course," Jolie answered when asked if she was bisexual. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, will I feel that it is okay to kiss and hug her?

If I fell in love with her?

Absolutely!

Yes!"

Billy Bob Thornton, a two-month courtship, married Jolie Brinton in Las Vegas on May 5, 2000. They met on the set of Pushing Tin (1999) but did not pursue a marriage at that time, as Thornton was engaged to actress Laura Dern, while Jolie was reportedly dating actor Timothy Hutton, co-starring in Playing God (1997). Their marriage became a hot topic of the entertainment media as a result of their regular public declarations of passion and gestures of love, most commonly wearing one another's blood in vials around their necks. In March 2002, Jolie and Thornton announced the adoption of a child from Cambodia but they were forced to separate three months later. The couple's divorce was finalized on May 27, 2003. When asked about the sudden end of their marriage, Jolie said, "It took me by surprise," because overnight, we completely changed." I believe we had nothing in common one day. And though it's scary,... it's scary. If you get involved, it will happen, but you don't know yourself yet," I suppose.

When she was accused of causing the separation of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in October 2005, Jolie was embroiled in a big controversy. "Because my own father cheats on my mother, I fell in love with Pitt (2005), she denied allegations of an affair, saying, "To be intimate with a married man when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I can accept." If I did not look at myself in the morning, I might not worry about it. I would not be attracted to a man who will cheat on his wife." Neither Jolie nor Pitt would speak out about the fact of their relationship until January 2006, when she revealed they were expecting their first child together.

The couple were nicknamed "Brangelina"—a portmanteau coined by the media — and were widely distributed in national media coverage during their 12-year marriage and are the focus of worldwide media coverage. They rose to fame as one of Hollywood's most glamorous couples. Their family grew to six children, three of whom were adopted before they announced their engagement in April 2012. Jolie and Pitt were married on August 14, 2014, and they had their wedding at Château Miraval in Correns, France, on August 23, 2014. She adopted the name "Angelina Jolie Pitt" shortly. The couple wed on September 15, 2016, after two years of marriage, we announced divorce on September 15, 2016. Jolie requested divorce on September 19, citing irreconcilable differences as the cause. On April 12, 2019, they were declared legally single. Pitt was suing Jolie for selling her part of a winery they owned to a third party, so she filed a countersuit in which she argued that she physically and verbally assaulted her and their children on a plane in 2016.

Jolie has six children. Three of the children were adopted internationally, while three others are biological, three of whom are biological.

Jolie adopted seven-month-old Maddox Chivan from an orphanage in Battambang, Cambodia, on March 10, 2002. He was born in a local village on August 5, 2001. Jolie returned in November 2001 with her then-husband, Billy Bob Thornton, after visiting Cambodia twice while filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and a UNHCR field trip, where they met and then applied to adopt Maddox. The adoption process was suspended the following month after the US government barred adoptions from Cambodia due to allegations of child trafficking. Although Jolie's adoption specialist was later found guilty of visa fraud and money laundering, Maddox's adoption of Maddox was deemed lawful. Maddox was taken into custody in Namibia, where she was filming Beyond Borders (2003). Jolie and Thornton announced the adoption together, but Maddox became a single parent following her separation from Thornton three months later.

On July 6, 2005, Jolie adopted her second child, six-month-old Zahara Marley, from an Ethiopian orphanage. In Awasa, Yemsrach was born on January 8, 2005. Based on official evidence from her grandmother, Jolie initially assumed Zahara to be an HIV orphanage, but Zahara's birth mother later came forward in the media. When Zahara became sick, she told her that she had abandoned her family and said she felt Zahara was "very lucky" to have been adopted by Jolie. When Jolie travelled to Ethiopia to take custody of Zahara, she was joined by her late-partner, Brad Pitt. She later revealed that they had jointly decided to adopt from Ethiopia having first visited Ethiopia earlier this year. Jolie-Pitt was granted a petition after Pitt announced her intention to adopt her children. Maddox and Zahara were adopted shortly after by Pitt.

Jolie and Pitt took to Namibia to avoid the unprecedented media mania surrounding their first biological child's birth. She gave birth to Shiloh Nouvel in Swakopmund on May 27, 2006. Shiloh's middle name is in honor of French Architect Jean Nouvel. Jolie had fits of hysterical laughter during labor due to the administration of morphine. They sold the first pictures of Shiloh via Getty Images with the intention of enhancing charity rather than allowing paparazzi to photograph the photos.

People and Hello!

Magazines sold the North American and British photos for $4.1 and $3.5 million, respectively, a record in celebrity photojournalism at the time, with all proceeds going to UNICEF.

Jolie adopted three children, three-year-old Pax Thien, from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on March 15, 2007. Pax was born in HCMC on November 29, 2003, and was withdrawn soon after birth. Jolie applied for adoption as a single parent after visiting the orphanage with Pitt in November 2006 because Vietnam's adoption laws do not allow unmarried couples to co-adopt. After returning to the United States, she petitioned the court to change Pax Thien's surname from Jolie to Jolie-Pitt, which was approved on May 31. Pitt adopted Pax on February 21, 2008.

Jolie revealed that she was expecting twins at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Journalists and photographers camped outside on the promenade for the two weeks she spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, France. On July 12, 2008, she gave birth to twins Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline. Knox Léon was named after two of the twins' ancestors and Vivienne Marcheline were named in honor of Jolie's mother. To People and Hello! the first photographs of Knox and Vivienne were sold jointly by People and Hello! The most expensive celebrity photos ever shot sold for $14 million. All proceeds were donated to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy at age 37 after finding she had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer due to a defective BRCA1 gene. Her maternal family history prompted genetic testing for BRCA mutations: her mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and her grandmother died of ovarian cancer. Three months after Jolie's surgery, her aunt, who had the same BRCA1 mutation, died of breast cancer. Jolie underwent reconstructive surgery involving implants and allografts following her mastectomy, which reduced her chances of breast cancer to under five percent. She underwent preventive salpingo-oophorectomy (removal of an ovary and its fallopian tube) two years ago in March 2015, at a fifty percent risk of developing ovarian cancer due to the same genetic abnormality. Despite hormone replacement therapy, the surgery caused premature menopause.

In op-eds published by The New York Times, Jolie discussed her mastectomy and oophorectomy with the intention of assisting other women in making informed health decisions after finishing each surgery. She outlined her illness, surgeries, and personal experiences, and portrayed her decision to have preventive surgery as a preventive measure for the sake of her six children. "I do not think any less of a woman," Jolie wrote." I feel confident that I made a smart decision that in no way diminishes my femininity."

Jolie's announcement of her mastectomy drew widespread media attention and inquiry into BRCA mutations and genetic testing. Several public figures lauded her decision, while health campaigners applauded her for raising the possibility of at-risk women. Jolie's influence, which was dubbed "the Angelina Effect" by a Time cover article, resulted in a "global and long-lasting" rise in BRCA gene testing in Australia and India, as well as in other European countries and the United States. Despite the rise in mutation carriers, researchers in Canada and the United Kingdom discovered that despite the substantial increase, the percentage of mutation carriers stayed the same, meaning Jolie's message to those most vulnerable. Jolie's first op-ed campaign argued for wider access to BRCA gene testing and acknowledged the high costs that were later reduced after the Supreme Court invalidated Myriad Genetics' BRCA gene patents.

Source

Career

Jolie committed to acting professionally at the age of 16, but she had a difficult time getting to auditions, despite being told that her demeanor was "too dark." She appeared in five of her brother's films, as well as in numerous music videos, including "What Exactly Time" (1993), Antonello Venditti's "Alta Marea" (1993), Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" (1993). She began to learn from her father as she discovered his way of observing people to become like them. Their friendship at this time was less strained, with Jolie recognizing that they were both "drama queens" at the time.

Jolie began her film career in 1993, when she appeared in the direct-to-video science-fiction film Cyborg 2, a near-human robot intended for corporate spying and assassination. She was so dissatisfied with the film that she did not apply for another year. She appeared in her first Hollywood film, Hackers (1995), after a supporting role in the independent film Without Evidence (1995). Kate "stands out" in Angelina's story, according to Janet Maslin of the New York Times. She scowls even more sourly than [her co-stars] and is the rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top," explains the actress. Hackers were unable to make a buck at the box office, but they did form a cult following the company's video debut.

Jolie appeared in the modern-day Romeo and Juliet adaptation Love Is All There Is (1996), of which The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Jolie, an actress who is entirely credible, makes it entirely plausible that Danny Aiello's character would drop everything for the pleasure of being with her." Legs, a drifter who unites four teenage girls against a teacher who has sexually assaulted them, appeared in Foxfire (1996). "It took a lot of hogwash to create this character," Jack Mathews of the Los Angeles Times wrote, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the charisma to defy the stereotype. Despite the fact that Maddy is the protagonist and the catalyst, Legs is the object and catalyst."

Jolie appeared in the thriller Playing God, set in the Los Angeles underworld in 1997. Critics generally dismissed Jolie's film; Chicago Sun-Times reporter Roger Ebert wrote that she "finds a certain warmth in a role that is often difficult and demanding; she seems too sweet to be [a mobster's] girlfriend, and perhaps she is." Laura's next appearance in True Women (1997), as a frontierswoman, was even more fruitful; writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Robert Strauss described her as "horrid, a fourth-rate Scarlett O'Hara" who relys on "gnashed teeth and overly pouted lips. In addition, Jolie appeared in the Rolling Stones' "Anybody Seen My Baby" music video. As a stripper who leaves mid-performance to wander New York City, she makes the move to wander New York City.

Jolie's career prospects began to rise after she received a Golden Globe Award for her work in TNT's George Wallace (1997), about the life of segregationist Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace, portrayed by Gary Sinise. Cornelia Ward, Wallace's second wife, was portrayed by Jolie in a film directed by Lee Winfrey of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who said she was the subject of the film's Highlight. George Wallace was well received by journalists and received the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film, among other prizes. Jolie was also nominated for an Emmy Award for her efforts.

Jolie's first breakthrough came when she portrayed supermodel Gia Carangi in HBO's Gia (1998). Carangi's life and career were shattered as a result of her heroin use, her demise, and death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. "Jolie" earned a lot of attention for her role as the titular Gia, according to Vanessa Vance of Reel.com, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is adamant in her portrayal; she plays with a sense of urgency, charm, and desperation, and her role in this film is quite possibly the most gorgeous train wreck ever shot." Jolie received a Golden Globe Award for the second year in a row and was nominated for an Emmy Award. She also received her first Screen Actors Guild Award.

Jolie decided to remain in character in between scenes in several of her early films, and as a result, she had a reputation for being difficult to cope with. "I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks" while shooting Gia. After Gia's departure, she briefly stopped acting because she felt she had "nothing else to give" because she felt she had "nothing else to give." She dropped out of Miller and moved to New York University, where she went back to night classes to study directing and screenwriting. Jolie resumed her career after being inspired by her Golden Globe Award win for George Wallace and Gia's positive critical reception.

Jolie returned to the screen in Playing by Heart (1998), as part of an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, and Ryan Phillippe, following the previously shot gangster film Hell's Kitchen (1998). Jolie was lauded in large part for her performance, and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Peter Stack wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten portion, is a revelation as the poor club crawler discovers the truth about what she's able to lose." The National Board of Review voted her the Outstanding Performance Award.

Jolie appeared in the comedy-drama Pushing Tin in 1999, alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Critics and Jolie's character, as well as Thoma's seductive wife, was particularly offended; Desson Howe, the Washington Post, dismissed her as "a purely ludicrous writer's creation of a liberated woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die," while Russell spends entire nights away from home." Jolie co-starred in The Bone Collector (1999), playing a police officer who reluctantly helps Washington's quadriplegic detective track down a serial killer. The film earned $601.5 million around the world, but it was largely unprofitable. "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, has inevitably been miscast," the Detroit Free Press' Terry Lawson said.

In Girl, Interrupted (1999), an adaptation of Susanna Kaysen's memoir of the same name, Jolie took on the supporting role of Lisa, a sociopathic patient in a psychiatrist hospital. Although Winona Ryder played the lead character in what had aspired to be her comeback, the film instead celebrates Jolie's last Hollywood appearance. She received her third Golden Globe Award, her second Screen Actor Guild Award, and the Academy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2000. "Jolie is a great deal as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be much more important than the doctors in Susanna's recovery," Emanuel Levy of Variety wrote.

Jolie debuted in 2000 in her first summer blockbuster, Gone in 60 Seconds, which became her highest-grossing film to that point, grossing $237.2 million worldwide. She played a minor part in this film as Nicolas Cage's mechanic ex-girlfriend; Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post said, "all she does in this film is stand around, cooling down, and modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes nesting so incisively around her teeth." After her emotionally requesting role in Girl, Interrupted, Jolie later revealed that it had been a welcome relief.

Jolie, despite being lauded for her acting and appearances, had never found films that were particularly popular, but Tomb Raider's 2001 made her a worldwide celebrity. To play Lara Croft, the actress in an adaptation of the famous Tomb Raider video games needed her to have an English accent and extensive martial arts preparation. Despite mostly critical feedback, Jolie was praised for her physical appearance; Newsday's John Anderson said, "Jolie makes the title character a virtual symbol of female competence and coolth." The film was a worldwide hit, grossing $274.7 million, and it launched her international fame as a female action actress.

In Original Sin (2001), the first of a series of films that were poorly received by critics and audiences alike, Jolie starred opposite Antonio Banderas as his mail-order bride. Elvis Mitchell, a New York Times columnist, challenged Jolie's decision to continue her Oscar-winning appearance with "softcore nonsense." Although unsuccessful, Life or Something Like It (2002), a romantic comedy that made a strange choice for Jolie. Allen Barra of Salon magazine called her provocative newscaster role a rare attempt at playing a conventional women's role, noting that her appearance "doesn't get off the ground until a scene where she punks and leads a group of striking bus workers in singing 'Satisfaction'. Despite her box office success, Jolie stayed in demand as an actress; in 2002, she became one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses, grossing $10–15 million per film for the next five years.

Jolie reprised her role in Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life (2001), which was not as lucrative as the original, and it earned $606.5 million at the international box office. She appeared in the music video for Korn's "Did My Time," which was also used to advertise the sequel. Clive Owen's newest film, Beyond Borders (2003), depicts a socialite who joins an aid worker. Despite being somewhat off-track with viewers, Jolie's film is one of many passion projects to bring attention to humanitarian causes. Jolie's ability to "bring electricity and believability to roles," according to Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, but "the limbo of a hybrid character, a poorly written cardboard character in a fly-infested, blood-and-guts world completely debunks her."

Jolie appeared in four films in 2004. She appeared on Taking Lives as an FBI profiler sent by the government to assist with the hunt for a serial murderer in Montreal. Mixed reactions were given to the film, but the Hollywood Reporter critic Kirk Honeycutt concluded, "Jolie plays a role that may have already done," she wrote, "but she does bring an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour." Jolie appeared in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a science fiction adventure shot entirely with actors on a bluescreen, as well as her first family film, the DreamWorks animation Shark Tales. Her role as Queen Olympias in Oliver Stone's Alexander, about Alexander the Great's life, received mixed reviews, particularly the Slavic accent. The film in North America failed, which Stone attributed to Stone's disapproving of Alexander's bisexuality, but it did well internationally, grossing $167.3 million.

Jolie returned to major box office in 2005 with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which she starred opposite Brad Pitt as a bored married couple who find out that they are both unknown assassins. The film received mixed reviews, but it was generally lauded for the chemistry between the two leads; and, "although the film's plot is haphazard, the film's chemistry remains excellent; writer Colin Covert wrote: "While the film feels haphazard," the film's narrator says. Mr. & Mrs. Smith's seventh-highest grossing picture of the year, as well as Jolie's highest-grossing live-action film for the next decade, at $478.2 million around the world.

In Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), Jolie played Mariane Pearl, a supporting role as the neglected wife of a CIA officer. The film, based on Pearl's memoir of the same name, chronicles her husband's abduction and murder in Pakistan. Despite the fact that Pearl had personally chosen Jolie for the role, the casting of biracial Pearl provoked racial criticism and allegations of blackface. The resulting role had widespread success; Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter characterized it as "well-measured and moving" as "with reverence and a firm grasp on a difficult accent." She has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actor Guild Award. In the epic Beowulf (2006), starring Grendel's mother, he was also in the epic Beowulf, which was also filmed by motion capture. The film was critically and commercially well-received, grossing $196.4 million worldwide.

Jolie was once considered the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, grossing $15–$20 million per film by 2008. Although other actresses were expected to take pay cuts in recent years, Jolie's apparent box office appeal enabled her to fetch as much as 40% of the money. She appeared alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in the action film Wanted (2008), which gained $341.4 million worldwide, with worldwide success. Most critical comments were favorable; Manohla Dargis, a writer for The New York Times, said that Jolie was "perfectly cast as a super-scary, ostensibly amoral assassin." "She cuts the figure who can bring boys of all ages to their knees or at least into their theater seats."

Jolie was the lead actor in Clint Eastwood's drama Changeling (2008). The film, based in part on the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, focuses on Christine Collins, who is reunited with her kidnapped son in 1928 Los Angeles and discovers that he is an imposter. "Jolie really shines in the stillness before the storm, the scenes when one patronizing male power figure belittles someone at their peril," Chicago Tribune writer Michael Phillips said. She has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actor Guild Award, a BAFTA Fellowship, and an Academy Award for Best Actress. In the DreamWorks animation Kung Fu Panda (2008), the first work in a major family franchise, Jolie reprised her voice role in the sequels Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) and Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016).

Jolie appeared in fewer films after her mother's death in 2007, later explaining that her mother's acting aspirations had fueled her desire to be an actress. Salt, her first film in two years, starred a CIA agent who was convicted of being a KGB sleeper agent. Agent Salt underwent a gender change after a Columbia Pictures executive suggested Jolie for the role after being written as a male character with Tom Cruise attached to him. Salt became a worldwide success with revenues of $293.5 million. The film received generally favorable reviews, with Jolie's role in particular drawing praise; Empire critic William Thomas remarked, "When it comes to selling amazing, wild, death-defying antics, there are few peers in the action industry."

In the drama The Tourist (2010), Jolie starred opposite Johnny Depp. The film was a critical failure, though Roger Ebert defended Jolie's appearance, saying that she "does her darndest" and "plays her femme fatale with flat-out, drop-dead sexuality." Despite poor critical reception and a slow start at the North American box office, Jolie's film continued to earn a respectable $278.3 million globally, solidifying Jolie's appeal to international audiences. She was given a Golden Globe Award nomination for her appearance, sparking rumors that it was only meant to guarantee her high-profile attendance at the awards ceremony.

Jolie produced In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), a love story between a Serb soldier and a Bosniak prisoner set during the 1992–95 Bosnian War, which was released by the National Education Association. Since twice visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina in her capacity as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, she conceived the film to rekindle hope for the refugees. She portrayed only actors from the former Yugoslavia, including actors Goran Kosti and Zana Marjanovi, and incorporated their wartime experiences into her screenplay to ensure authenticity. The film received mixed reviews upon its debut; Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said, "Jolie deserved tremendous credit for establishing such opulent atmosphere and staging the ghastly scenes so convincingly, even though it is not desirable to watch what's on screen." The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Jolie was named an honorary citizen of Sarajevo for raising the film's alertness.

Jolie starred in Maleficent (2014), a live-action re-imagining of Disney's 1959 animated Sleeping Beauty after a three-and-a-half year absence from the screen. The critical reaction was split, but Jolie's role in the titular role was lauded; the Hollywood Reporter critic Sherri Linden found her to be the "heart and soul" of the film; she "doesn't chew the estimable scenery in Maleficent, but she infuses it, wielding a magnetic and effortless strength." Maleficent's debut in the North American box office and more than $100 million in other markets, demonstrating Jolie's popularity with audiences of all ages in both action and fantasy films, which are traditionally dominated by male actors. The film earned $757.8 million worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year and Jolie's highest-grossing film ever.

Jolie's next project, Unbroken (2014), is a British Olympic track star who survived a plane crash over sea and spent two years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. She also worked as a producer under her Jolie Pas banner. Unbroken is based on Laura Hillenbrand's biography of the same name, and the Coen brothers scripted the film and starred Jack O'Connell. Following a positive early reception, Unbroken was expected to be a future Best Picture and Best Director contender, but it ultimately received mixed reviews and no award recognition, despite being named one of the year's best films by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. Justin Chang, a writer for Variety magazine, praised the film's "impecable workmanship and sober restraint," but described it as "an extraordinary tale told in dutiful, unexceptional terms." Unbroken also met financial goals in the first weekend, earning over $163 million worldwide.

Jolie's next directorial effort was By the Sea (2015), in which she appeared alongside her husband Brad Pitt, marking their first appearance since 2005's Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The film, based on her screenplay, was a deeply personal project for Jolie, who took inspiration from her own mother's life. Critics, on the other hand, dismissed it as a "vanity scheme" as part of a general poor reception. Stephanie Merry, a Washington Post reporter, reflected on the dearth of genuine emotion in the book, saying, "By the Sea is dazzlingly gorgeous, as are its stars." However, peeling back layer upon layer of exquisite ennui reveals nothing more than emptiness, sprinkled with stilted sentiments. Despite starring two of Hollywood's top actors, the film received only limited release.

Although Jolie preferred to devote herself to her charitable causes, her film career was sporadic. They Killed My Father (2017), a film set during Cambodia's Khmer Rouge period, helped her to marry both interests. Loung Ung, her longtime friend, co-wrote the screenplay and provided the film with her memoirs about the regime's child labor camps as source material. The film, which was designed specifically for a Cambodian audience, was created for Netflix, which allowed for the use of a solely Khmer cast and script. Jolie was hailed and sensitive filmmaker," according to Rafer Guzmán of Newsday, "effectively portray[ing] the Khmer Rouge era's illogical hell." It has been nominated for the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.

Jolie reprised her role in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019), which received critical praise but also did well commercially, with a global gross of $490 million. In the 2020 fantasy film Come Away, she appeared alongside David Oyelowo as grieving parents to Alice's title characters. In Taylor Sheridan's action thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead, Jolie played a smokejumper. The film was released in May 2021 and received moderate to moderate reviews. Clarisse Loughrey of the Independent wrote Jolie's "bare-knuckled performance... easily outclasses the film that contains it." In the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Eternals, Jolie next appeared as Thena, a warrior with post-traumatic stress disorder. The film, which was released in November 2021, received a variety of responses from viewers and critics alike. Ann Hornaday analyzed the film for The Washington Post, highlighting the "touching naivete" in Jolie's portrayal. Jolie is expected to produce and appear in a James Scott book The Kept, which is a sequel to The Kept.

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