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Angelina Jolie
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People November 8, 2021
The Kindness Issue 2021
A celebration of humanity and compassion by the celebrities and everyday heroes who bring out the best in all of us
THE PROUD MOM ON HER KIDS, THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER OF HELPING OTHERS AND WHY SHE’S FEELING STRONG AS SHE STARS IN HER FIRST SUPERHERO MOVIE, ETERNALS
By Mary Green
AS ANGELINA JOLIE WALKED THE RED carpet in mid-October for her new movie Eternals (out Nov. 5), her eyes shone while she scanned the faces of the young people next to her: Maddox, 20, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15, and Knox and Vivienne, 13. The kids (minus Pax, 17, who didn’t attend) watched proudly as their mom worked the press line. “They don’t always listen, and they don’t always think I’m cool,” says Jolie, 46, laughing. But right now she’s scoring serious cool-mom points with her Eternals character, the complicated warrior-hero Thena. “They said they liked her because she felt the most like me,” she says. “I don’t know what that says about how my children see me!”
In many ways, Jolie’s children have been her rocks. They’ve given the star and longtime U.N. advocate for refugees the strength to face difficult realities, whether coping with her mother’s death, moving forward in her divorce from Brad Pitt or grieving for a refugee grandmother who saw her children killed. “I’ve lived a very blessed life,” she says. “That’s not to say it’s without things that have hurt and caused harm. But I’ve tried to live outside myself. When you go to sleep at night and you feel like you’ve been of use to another human being, whether it’s your friend, your child, someone, that’s a life worth living.”
What does kindness mean to you?
I don’t think of myself as a kind person. Generosity of spirit—I think that’s a better way of putting it. I’ve always lived my life thinking I try to be true to myself without harming others. And that’s how I’ve tried to balance it. I’ve learned more, my spirit has benefited, my life has benefited from being allowed to be in the company of people who are surviving very difficult things.
Your Eternals character faces grief and dark times. How did you relate to that?
Many people—many women—who have dealt with different things in their life may appear to be not stable or hysterical, when in fact what they’re really dealing with is a deep truth and a pain. Why are we here? To deeply explore ourselves, deeply explore each other. I think there’s sometimes a lot of focus on how to not go deep, to stay distracted or just be fine about things. Some people find joy and light easier, and it’s a beautiful thing. But other people are not broken because they feel more at ease in the darker places.
I’ve struggled before with feeling my mind was too loud, feeling like I was never settled, not knowing if I could live this life. But then you go and you meet people who are just trying to survive, and I felt embarrassed that I had taken life so lightly. At this stage in my life, I’ve decided I’m not going to settle and I’m not going to be less upset or less anxious. I’m going to try to enjoy and love where I can. But I also want to sit in that heavier place.
You’ve been visiting and helping refugees in your U.N. role for more than 20 years, often alongside your kids. What have you learned that’s changed you?
I don’t like the idea that it’s some burden, that it’s so nice of somebody to go out of their way to help somebody else. It’s not. When I see somebody who’s suffering through the hardest things in life, whether it be cancer or displacement or whatever it is, they are surviving something. They are deeply rooted and open and strong. I met a grandmother who was raising her grandchildren because her children had been murdered in war. I remember I started to cry. And she said, “I don’t need you to cry, I need you to help me.” That was a big lesson. Sitting and feeling sorry for somebody is this luxury—you can sit in your feelings, but they don’t have the time to feel sorry for themselves.
What my mom thought me
“Her kindness and what it did for those around her was of course a lesson. But as I’ve gone through more as an adult, as a mother, to help my family, I’ve had to put other sides of myself to sleep. I didn’t know the extent of what she had to do until I went through it myself. My perception of her is this mom and this saint and this dedicated person. And now I see the reality: She was a woman who was an artist, a sexual person, a funny person, a rock and roller, all of these things. She put all of that in a box so she could grow us [Jolie and her brother James Haven]. How selfless. But she showed me those are the choices that made her life worth living.”
Your kids were born all around the world. What’s been most important to you to teach them as they’ve grown up?
It’s how I always dreamt of family. I felt so blessed to be able to be a mother to children from different parts of the world and to learn about their cultures through them. I’ve always seen diversity as strength. I felt that if I raised a family in the world, that I wouldn’t have to say [that to my kids]. They would just see it. If you play with people from all over the world, if you are making friends and playing games with people from different countries since you’ve been little, it doesn’t cross your mind to think of them as other. It just doesn’t. I didn’t keep them from also having an experience on the red carpet. It’s not like I’m going to make you do charity work and you’re going to feel that one is good and one is bad. But [the red carpet] is not the center of life.
“I was meeting Syrian refugees in 2016. I must have looked tired standing there, and this little girl walked over and offered me some biscuits she had in her pocket. I know what she’d come from and what she was heading into [a refugee camp]. But she wasn’t thinking of herself and everything she had lost. She wasn’t sitting with self-pity. That’s what makes human beings so wonderful.”
How have you adjusted to your kids’ different personalities and phases?
I am curious about all the different aspects of who they are. And I want to be there to support and develop all the different aspects of who they are. It’s being excited to figure out: Who is this person you live with? To separate yourself from your desires for that person. This is not an extension of you. This is truly an individual human being. I have six very individual human beings in my home. I am so excited about all the different stages and feelings and curiosities that they go through. Why wouldn’t you be? We’re supposed to help them figure out who they are. And you can’t figure out who they are if you don’t enthusiastically develop with them.
But the funny thing is, I also like a little rebellion. So I’m that mom that if I see your rebellious spirit, it warms me. And I think, “Good for you, you got fire.” I’m not a perfect parent by any means. Every day I feel like I’m more aware of everything I don’t do right. And I’m pretty tough on myself, because I feel often, “Am I doing the right thing? Did I say the right thing?”
How have the kids influenced each other—and you?
They’re pretty great people. And because there’s so many of them, I think they’ve had a very significant effect on each other. It’s not like I’m the head of anything. I’m very honest with my kids. And I’m very human with my kids. And so I think when they see me standing up there being a superhero, they don’t see somebody who’s got it all together. They see the person that they’ve known go through many different things, struggle to deal with different things. Try her best, fail, be this, be that and then stand up. They know all that. My children have done many, many loving things. My children’s kindness has been very healing to me.
The Kindness Issue 2021
A celebration of humanity and compassion by the celebrities and everyday heroes who bring out the best in all of us
THE PROUD MOM ON HER KIDS, THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER OF HELPING OTHERS AND WHY SHE’S FEELING STRONG AS SHE STARS IN HER FIRST SUPERHERO MOVIE, ETERNALS
By Mary Green
AS ANGELINA JOLIE WALKED THE RED carpet in mid-October for her new movie Eternals (out Nov. 5), her eyes shone while she scanned the faces of the young people next to her: Maddox, 20, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15, and Knox and Vivienne, 13. The kids (minus Pax, 17, who didn’t attend) watched proudly as their mom worked the press line. “They don’t always listen, and they don’t always think I’m cool,” says Jolie, 46, laughing. But right now she’s scoring serious cool-mom points with her Eternals character, the complicated warrior-hero Thena. “They said they liked her because she felt the most like me,” she says. “I don’t know what that says about how my children see me!”
In many ways, Jolie’s children have been her rocks. They’ve given the star and longtime U.N. advocate for refugees the strength to face difficult realities, whether coping with her mother’s death, moving forward in her divorce from Brad Pitt or grieving for a refugee grandmother who saw her children killed. “I’ve lived a very blessed life,” she says. “That’s not to say it’s without things that have hurt and caused harm. But I’ve tried to live outside myself. When you go to sleep at night and you feel like you’ve been of use to another human being, whether it’s your friend, your child, someone, that’s a life worth living.”
What does kindness mean to you?
I don’t think of myself as a kind person. Generosity of spirit—I think that’s a better way of putting it. I’ve always lived my life thinking I try to be true to myself without harming others. And that’s how I’ve tried to balance it. I’ve learned more, my spirit has benefited, my life has benefited from being allowed to be in the company of people who are surviving very difficult things.
Your Eternals character faces grief and dark times. How did you relate to that?
Many people—many women—who have dealt with different things in their life may appear to be not stable or hysterical, when in fact what they’re really dealing with is a deep truth and a pain. Why are we here? To deeply explore ourselves, deeply explore each other. I think there’s sometimes a lot of focus on how to not go deep, to stay distracted or just be fine about things. Some people find joy and light easier, and it’s a beautiful thing. But other people are not broken because they feel more at ease in the darker places.
I’ve struggled before with feeling my mind was too loud, feeling like I was never settled, not knowing if I could live this life. But then you go and you meet people who are just trying to survive, and I felt embarrassed that I had taken life so lightly. At this stage in my life, I’ve decided I’m not going to settle and I’m not going to be less upset or less anxious. I’m going to try to enjoy and love where I can. But I also want to sit in that heavier place.
You’ve been visiting and helping refugees in your U.N. role for more than 20 years, often alongside your kids. What have you learned that’s changed you?
I don’t like the idea that it’s some burden, that it’s so nice of somebody to go out of their way to help somebody else. It’s not. When I see somebody who’s suffering through the hardest things in life, whether it be cancer or displacement or whatever it is, they are surviving something. They are deeply rooted and open and strong. I met a grandmother who was raising her grandchildren because her children had been murdered in war. I remember I started to cry. And she said, “I don’t need you to cry, I need you to help me.” That was a big lesson. Sitting and feeling sorry for somebody is this luxury—you can sit in your feelings, but they don’t have the time to feel sorry for themselves.
What my mom thought me
“Her kindness and what it did for those around her was of course a lesson. But as I’ve gone through more as an adult, as a mother, to help my family, I’ve had to put other sides of myself to sleep. I didn’t know the extent of what she had to do until I went through it myself. My perception of her is this mom and this saint and this dedicated person. And now I see the reality: She was a woman who was an artist, a sexual person, a funny person, a rock and roller, all of these things. She put all of that in a box so she could grow us [Jolie and her brother James Haven]. How selfless. But she showed me those are the choices that made her life worth living.”
Your kids were born all around the world. What’s been most important to you to teach them as they’ve grown up?
It’s how I always dreamt of family. I felt so blessed to be able to be a mother to children from different parts of the world and to learn about their cultures through them. I’ve always seen diversity as strength. I felt that if I raised a family in the world, that I wouldn’t have to say [that to my kids]. They would just see it. If you play with people from all over the world, if you are making friends and playing games with people from different countries since you’ve been little, it doesn’t cross your mind to think of them as other. It just doesn’t. I didn’t keep them from also having an experience on the red carpet. It’s not like I’m going to make you do charity work and you’re going to feel that one is good and one is bad. But [the red carpet] is not the center of life.
“I was meeting Syrian refugees in 2016. I must have looked tired standing there, and this little girl walked over and offered me some biscuits she had in her pocket. I know what she’d come from and what she was heading into [a refugee camp]. But she wasn’t thinking of herself and everything she had lost. She wasn’t sitting with self-pity. That’s what makes human beings so wonderful.”
How have you adjusted to your kids’ different personalities and phases?
I am curious about all the different aspects of who they are. And I want to be there to support and develop all the different aspects of who they are. It’s being excited to figure out: Who is this person you live with? To separate yourself from your desires for that person. This is not an extension of you. This is truly an individual human being. I have six very individual human beings in my home. I am so excited about all the different stages and feelings and curiosities that they go through. Why wouldn’t you be? We’re supposed to help them figure out who they are. And you can’t figure out who they are if you don’t enthusiastically develop with them.
But the funny thing is, I also like a little rebellion. So I’m that mom that if I see your rebellious spirit, it warms me. And I think, “Good for you, you got fire.” I’m not a perfect parent by any means. Every day I feel like I’m more aware of everything I don’t do right. And I’m pretty tough on myself, because I feel often, “Am I doing the right thing? Did I say the right thing?”
How have the kids influenced each other—and you?
They’re pretty great people. And because there’s so many of them, I think they’ve had a very significant effect on each other. It’s not like I’m the head of anything. I’m very honest with my kids. And I’m very human with my kids. And so I think when they see me standing up there being a superhero, they don’t see somebody who’s got it all together. They see the person that they’ve known go through many different things, struggle to deal with different things. Try her best, fail, be this, be that and then stand up. They know all that. My children have done many, many loving things. My children’s kindness has been very healing to me.
puresoul
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Angelina Jolie was among the crowd gathered at the White House yesterday afternoon, Wednesday, March 16, as President Biden signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
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Toocomplicated
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