Motherhood has made life a lot more happy for Jolie
After the breakup of two marriages and a publicized rift with her father, Angelina Jolie is more serene these days.
It’s motherhood, she says, that’s made all the difference.
“I’m much more peaceful because as long as he’s healthy, I don’t worry about anything. Nothing else can shake me,” she says of her 3-year-old adopted Cambodian son, Maddox.
“I don’t stress about things that don’t matter. Before I was leaving today I said, ‘I’m going to work.’ And he didn’t want me to go. I said, ‘And don’t call me and make faces and go pfffft.’ And I just got the phone call: ‘Mama, pffffft.’ “
Jolie takes motherhood seriously onscreen as well. She plays the exotic and mysterious mother of Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone’s new “Alexander.”
It doesn’t bother her that she’s just one year older than Colin Farrell, who plays Alexander.
“At first I thought it was as ridiculous as anybody else, but I think meeting with Colin and with Oliver and talking about it, reading the script I identified with her,” she says.
Indeed, there is a maturity about Jolie that didn’t used to be there. She’s often felt like an outsider though she lived an “insider” upbringing as the daughter of actor Jon Voight in Los Angeles.
Still, at 29 she’s been through a lot. Her marriage to British actor Jonny Lee Miller ended after three years. So did her showy marriage (they wore amulets containing each other’s blood around their necks) to actor Billy Bob Thornton.
When that union ended, she says, it was the most difficult time of her life.
“When I first adopted Mad, my marriage broke up and I divided from my father. It all happening within a series was the hardest time. …
“(J)ust trying, in the middle of that, trying to take responsibility for being a parent and learning about being a parent and try to enjoy that and not have my son see me cry, that was a big thing. My mom said she was worried when I was little that she cried too much in front of us.”
Though her father has made public appeals to her, Jolie says she’s not going to relent.
“We just don’t understand each other as people,” she says. “I have no animosity. I don’t hate him. I have no anger. I just can’t have that in my life.”
In addition to her film work, Jolie is a goodwill ambassador with the U.N. – a position that recently took her to the war-torn Sudan, where the brutality and suffering convinced her that her own woes are insignificant.
She’s dating two men now, though she won’t say whom. When it comes to romance, she’s looking for a specific type.
“Somebody said to me – we were talking about relationships and I agreed with them – they felt you have to find a person that you share the same values with and the same way of approaching life and family,” she says.
“That takes a lot. I’m just still coming to terms with exactly what that is for me, but I would be looking for the best father in the world and a guy who is up at night trying to figure out how best to do some good things, things for other people. Until then, I’ll just stay where I am.”
The birthday bunch
Actor Ricardo Montalban is 84. Singer Percy Sledge is 64. Actor/game show host Ben Stein is 60. Actor John Larroquette is 57. Singer Amy Grant is 44. Actress Jill Hennessy (“Crossing Jordan”) is 35. Actress Christina Applegate is 33.