Angelina Jolie: Touched by an Angelina

"The other night, I made dinner for myself," continues Jolie. "I got dressed in a fancy dress, and I sat down and ate that dinner all alone. My instinct is to stand in front of the fridge and just shovel it in, but I wanted to feel like a grown-up, like this was the kind of thing I did all the time."

"Who the hell gets dressed up to eat alone?" I ask.

"You don't? But if I'm going to do this New York thing, then I have to start feeling good here. And part of that is to put on heels and stockings, and be happy to be by myself. When I lived in L.A., I used to wake up every day and just jump in my car and drive around for a couple of hours. I wouldn't stop anywhere, I wouldn't get out of the car--I'd just drive. I got into tons of car accidents. I was a menace."

"Can I see what's in your refrigerator?" I say.

"Really?" Jolie asks, confused. "Most journalists want to look at my books."

"Anyone can buy books that look cool," I point out. "But what's in your fridge says a lot about you."

She leads the way and opens the freezer. A solitary pint of Ben & Jerry's and a little bottle of Absolut vodka. The fridge contains a box of cereal, some PowerBars, two six packs of beer and assorted leftover candy.

"Ah," I say, "the lonely girl's refrigerator."

"No, it's OK. I am learning to do for myself. My whole life, I had my mom or my husband. But now, I get up in the morning and I have no one to rely on except myself. And I'm learning to trust myself. I have good instincts."

"Do you and your father talk about movie roles?" I ask.

"Yes and no. I love talking to him about work because he knows immediately what I mean. But we don't sit and dissect scripts together."

"In Wallace, your character tries to get her husband to have sex with her after he's become a cripple. Your father played a similar kind of scene in Coming Home."

"When I was doing Wallace, a guy was talking about that scene. He didn't know I was Jon's daughter. But trust me--the last thing I wanted in my mind when I was kissing Gary Sinise was the image of my father with his head between Jane Fonda's legs!"

Jolie pauses, then continues, "A few years ago, they had this anniversary edition of Midnight Cowboy. [Jon] took me with him, and that was weird, because although it's a great movie and all that, to me it was just more about seeing how my father felt at the time. In one scene he was running on the beach, and when I saw this I burst out crying, because all I could think was how much I love him and how that must have been such a happy day for him. The whole world was at his fingers and I could see his favorite expressions that, as he's gotten older and gotten more serious about the world, he uses less often. I thought, this is more the essence of somebody that I love and I hope he really still connects to, because I love this guy in this movie. My favorite movie of his is Conrack..."

"Conrack?" I laugh. You can guarantee this movie won't appear on anyone else's Best of Voight list. It came out in 1974 and was a sappy film about a smalltown teacher who makes a difference in a black school. It's the one film of Voight's where he plays a completely normal guy.

"Sure, you think it's funny, but Conrack was just so cool. He played a great teacher--stop laughing!"

"OK," I say, trying to stop Jolie. "So let me just recap here: you've moved to New York, you're trying to learn the mechanics and theory of how movies are made, and you want to be a real grown-up."

"Do you think that's too much to take on at one time?" Jolie asks without a trace of irony. "There are things I have to get done. It's not like time is running out, but..."

"Angelina, you're only 22 years old."

"But I feel like I have to grab it all right now. There's a lot to learn out there. I don't want to get too far behind."

I think she might be kidding, but there's an earnest look on her face. When I leave she gives me a kiss and pushes me out the door, into the giant box with the ASBESTOS! warning. Instead of thinking of my safety, I'm thinking that Jolie is probably slipping into her evening dress for a dinner for one.

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Martha Frankel interviewed Jon Bon Jovi for the February 98 issue of Movieline.

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