Jolie's life merges with art in 'Beyond Borders'
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FEATURE-Jolie's life merges with art in 'Beyond Borders'
By Larry Fine, Reuters
NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) - For Angelina Jolie, "Beyond Borders," is beyond an
ordinary movie. It is a film project that changed her life and introduced her
to the joys of eating fried frogs on a stick.
The romantic adventure about relief workers set against the backdrop of some of
the world's most dangerous political hot spots, opens in the United States on
Friday.
The film script presented to Jolie five years ago opened her eyes to the plight
of millions of refugees around the world and set her on a course light years
away from her much-publicised wild, reckless days.
The 28-year-old actress, now the single mother of an adopted Cambodian boy,
Maddox, was being given the U.N. Correspondents Association's Citizen of the
World award this week by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The menu for a U.N. dinner in her honour did not feature the cuisine Jolie has
sampled -- and grown fond of -- since buying a home in Cambodia to better bond
with the two-year-old she calls Madness."
"You eat the side of a cow, you eat a bug. I don't see a huge difference. I
like those whole frogs on a stick like a puppet, small and stretched out. With
a beer and some beetles and a few crickets, they're actually quite good."
Jolie, who won the Oscar as best supporting actress in 2000 for "Girl
Interrupted," said her life shifted dramatically after first reading the
"Beyond Borders" script.
"I was really moved by it," Jolie said in an interview. "I knew nothing about
the subject matter."
The project, originally pitched by director Oliver Stone, met with delays, but
Jolie was stirred to action.
"When the film didn't go, I was disappointed. I wanted to take that journey."
Jolie, who once scrawled the name of her first husband, actor Jonny Lee Miller,
in blood across her shirt and who wore the blood of second actor-husband Billy
Bob Thornton in a pendant, made arrangements to travel to Sierra Leone where
she met the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
She travelled with relief workers to Cambodia and Pakistan the following year
and in 2001 was asked by the UNHCR to become its goodwill ambassador.
Since then, the actress has visited refugee camps in Namibia, Thailand,
Ecuador, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Ingushetia and Congo.
After she became a real-life champion for refugee relief causes, the film
project was revived with Martin Campbell, director of "GoldenEye" and "The Mask
of Zorro" at the helm.
Jolie said once they began making the film about a socialite drawn into
humanitarian work by a charismatic relief doctor played by Clive Owen, she felt
it had to be as accurate as possible about conditions in the field. The
response so far has been gratifying, she said.
Annan, who sat beside Jolie at Monday night's premiere, introduced the movie.
"The story told in the film we are about to see should serve as a reminder that
real life is often stranger -- and even more moving -- than fiction.
"It helps bring us closer to the lives of people caught in the world's
conflicts, and those who try to help them."
SERIOUS BONDING
Jolie has another indelible connection to the film.
During the filming she took custody of the then seven-month-old Maddox.
As Jolie focused on her new role as a mother, she said she made a conscious
decision to become celibate. After a year of abstinence, she said she has
relaxed that stance.
"I'm over that now," she said with an impish grin. "But I'm not in any kind of
a real relationship. I wanted to remember what it's like to be a woman after
just being a mom for a long time."
Jolie plans to adopt more children. "I have a dream of having kids from
different countries with different cultures and religions all under the same
roof and learning from each other."
She said the U.N. award was something to feel proud about.
"I really respect the work they do, and this makes me feel like I've done well
in that job," she said.
10/22/03 09:53 ET
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