By Tim Nasson
St. Regis Hotel, Los Angeles – TV tabloid show “Access Hollywood” on Wednesday, November 10th, reported, (via an US Weekly correspondent), that Academy Award winning actress Angelina Jolie, who was bunked down at The St. Regis Hotel promoting her upcoming Oliver Stone film, Alexander, had started the process of making amends with dad, Academy Award winning actor, Jon Voight, who was at same hotel promoting his upcoming Jerry Bruckheimer film, National Treasure. It was even reported that Grandpa Voight was spied taking little Maddox, (Jolie’s three year old adopted son), for a walk amidst the hotel grounds. Got it?
It always amazes me, as a legitimate member of the press, when any outlet of the media, be it television, print, online or radio, makes ludicrous claims, based on absolutely nothing but conjecture. Oh my. Angelina and her dad are staying at the same hotel for the weekend on business, for two separate movies, released by two completely different movie studios. Therefore, they must be on the road to reconciliation. Right?
Wrong. And, if only the reporter, filing her story as fact, had actually spoken to Angelina and/or her father, she would have found out the truth, instead of making a fool of herself on national television, giving new meaning to the word ‘trash TV.’
I actually sat down with Angelina Jolie on Sunday afternoon, November 7th, at The St. Regis Hotel, unlike the woman who was featured on “Access Hollywood,” who just heard from sources that Angelina and dad were at the hotel. More importantly, during our half hour, face-to-face conversation, I asked Jolie point blank if she, who graduated from Beverly Hills High School at age 16, like Tatum O’Neal, (daughter of famed actor Ryan), had ever contemplated writing a ‘tell all’ book about her wild childhood life, and/or, if she was inclined to repair her relationship with her father.
Here is what Angelina, who is of Czechoslovakian, French, and Native American heritage, who was sitting less than six inches from me, told me about those subjects and many others.
“Tim. If you put together all of the interviews and tabloid stories published about me during the past ten years, you could write that book and ten others. I have been accused of so many things that aren’t true, like f****** my brother. I mean, come on! I have never hidden the facts or what I am feeling with the media.
“As for ever speaking to my father again? I have no ill will towards my father. But he has made my life miserable and has not taken responsibility for his actions. And if he ever did attempt to reconcile, it is too late. I will NEVER attempt to make amends with him and don’t ever see a time in my life, not just the near future, where we will ever reconcile. I don’t hate him but when someone is such a negative influence on you and when someone whom you once loved turns on you, why have that person in your life? I need positive influences and people in my life. And anyone who has a debilitating effect on my or my son’s life will not be in my life. Ever. I want my son and myself surrounded by positive influences and people. He is impressionable, especially at his age, [two and a half]. So, no, I will never speak to my father again. And never doesn’t mean until next week or next year. It means never.”
Angelina Jolie, whose big screen career began ten years ago with the hardly seen movie Hackers, (in which she co-starred with Johnny Lee Miller, who was also her first, yet, temporary husband), has certainly gone on to bigger and better projects, (as did Hackers director, Iain Softly who helmed Wings of the Dove), such as her Academy Award winning performance in Girl, Interrupted, her Golden Globe winning roles as “Gia,” and in HBO’s “George Wallace.” She even became the world’s highest paid female action star with the Tomb Raider films and Gone In 60 Seconds.
Over the past decade, I had spoken with Jolie five times previously, even before her tumultuous, on-again, off-again relationship with Billy Bob Thornton began and then ended, when she was a self-proclaimed bi-sexual. Renowned, still, for being a ‘bad girl’ and for not caring what convention thinks about her choices in life, she admits to having had lesbian affairs. “Big deal,” she said to me about those female-on-female sexual encounters. “I am not going to hide whoever it is I happen to be in love with. If it happens to be a woman, and at times it has been, then tough s*** if you don’t like it.”
During another visit when speaking about the special effects in Tomb Raider, Jolie wasn’t embarrassed to admit that the breasts on screen, Lara Croft’s, are bigger than hers. “I am only a size 36-C,” she chuckles. “Those t****** on screen are at least a 38-D. Too bad it’s not that easy to make them bigger in real life. Although, you know? I am happy with the size of my breasts. I have had my lips injected with silicone, though,” she admits freely.
As for the movie, Alexander, Angelina Jolie portrays the title character’s mother, (Colin Farrell), albeit only a year older than Farrell in real life. “I don’t think it’s too crazy that I am playing ‘Alexander’s’ mother. Our roles required us to be in different places. Colin got in touch with his younger self, since he starts out playing a nineteen year old. And I got in touch with my older self, since I was dealing with death,” (her husband, King Philip, played by Val Kilmer, is murdered early on), and all sorts of mayhem. I was able to delve into my dark and depressed sides. You know I have those sides,” she says, laughing.
Angelina Jolie, who delivers the best acting performance in Alexander, may just earn her second Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role as Olympias. Her performance as a late forty-something Greek diva is that convincing.
Angelina Jolie puts up her hand, mid sentence, as her cell phone rings. She sees the caller ID and answers it. “Maddox? What did mommy tell you? She is working right now and not to call and go…” and Jolie makes noise with her tongue and lips. “Mommy will be back in a few minutes.”
After hanging the phone up, Angelina Jolie explains that she instructed her son, who was with the nanny at the hotel, in a separate suite, not to bother her with silly, spitting phone calls. She cracks up when she mimics the sounds he makes into the phone. “How can you get mad at that? He is so cute.”
Angelina Jolie, a mother on and off screen, reveals how she has matured from the girl she was the night she won her first Golden Globe Award and jumped into the swimming pool at The Beverly Hilton, still in her evening dress. “I was not afraid of the snakes I had to hold in ‘Alexander.’ But I was afraid for the little boy who was playing young ‘Alexander’ and had to be around them for so long. I wouldn’t allow my son to be around anything that dangerous for even a second.” Amidst the snakes, both rat snakes and pythons, and murder and treachery and everything in between, (her son flying the coop, conquering the known world), Olympias survives. “I loved playing that role because Olympias is a strong woman.” And that just may be the reason Oliver Stone cast Jolie as the mother of ‘Alexander’ -November 7, 2004.
