25 October 2003

Source: NPR
Italian trancript
Listen the interview
Beyond Borders releases

Scott Simon, host: Two months ago when rebel attacks and land mines had killed seven soldiers and injured 20 during one day of war in Chechnya, Angelina Jolie was touring camps of refugees who'd fled across the border. Her trip was not a cameo role. For the last five years, Angelina Jolie has tried to draw attention to the plight of the world's 20 million refugees by informing herself. She has a two-year-old son named Maddox, an orphan from Cambodia and she has a new movie out this week called "Beyond Borders." It's a love story that focuses on a woman who leaves her high-society life in London to work with refugees in Africa, Cambodia and Chechnya, and it's led to Angelina Jolie's real-life role as goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Angelina Jolie joins us now from the United Nations in New York City.

Miss Jolie, thanks for being with us.

A. Jolie: Oh, thank you for having me.

Simon: Did you want to do the movie because this reflected your interests, or did the movie kind of move you along that way?

A. Jolie: It was a script for this film that I read five years ago when I was in the middle of Mexico working and I knew nothing. I knew very little. I knew as much as most people do about what's really happening in the rest of the world. And when the film didn't go at that time, I decided I should learn something, not with the intention of becoming a UN ambassador. Just, I wanted to start traveling and I wanted to learn. And when I did, I was shocked and I wanted to get more involved.

Simon: How did you set about learning?

A. Jolie: I got a bunch of books. I had books on all different aid organizations, books on the UN, and I read through the different chapters. And I had heard about UNICEF and read a lot about them, and then I read about UNHCR and I kind of sat in bed one night reading about 20 million refugees, all these people displaced, all these kids, in over 115 countries. And I called and said, `You might think I'm crazy. I'm an actress. I just want to learn. I don't want to go with press. I just--if you could give me access, allow me in on a trip so I could just witness and learn,' and they did and that was the beginning.

Simon: What did you see in those first few months of informing yourself that stays with you now?

A. Jolie: God, so many things. The first country I went to was Sierra Leone, and it was after the RUF or during the RUF but after the worst, I think, of the horrors at that time.

Simon: This was the insurgency that was inflicting the country then.

A. Jolie: Yes. And they were famous for and notorious for cutting off the hands and feet of different civilians, of different people to prove a point, and there are kids as young as two with no arms. And just to see human beings living in that condition and then talk with them--and they were wonderful...

Simon: Yeah.

A. Jolie: ...kind families just like my family. And then I went to Tanzania and then there was, you know, the camps on the border which--I've just been back and there are more people there. I was hoping there'd be less, but because of the Congo, it's kind of never settling, and there's half a million people living in camps, just a sea of human beings. Just things like that are just overwhelming, shocking. You can't understand how it happened. You can't understand how nobody told you--you know, somehow it wasn't important enough or somebody decided that you shouldn't...

Simon: Yeah.

A. Jolie: ...you know, I was never sat down and explained what was happening in the world. And I couldn't believe it.

Simon: Do you like this movie, "Beyond Borders"?

A. Jolie: I do like this movie. I think we worked very hard on it, and it's impossible to represent everybody and to represent everybody perfectly, but we really tried to just give the essence of what it's like out there and really shed light on these areas to just remind people.

Simon: May I be bold enough to offer you a completely uninformed precaution I have about this movie?

A. Jolie: Sure.

Simon: And I'll offer the criticism in advance 'cause I haven't seen the film, and I speak as someone who's been a reporter in many of those zones. Why is it there--to tell a story about what happens to people in these fractured, dangerous societies, we always have to get an imperiled Western hero and heroine?

A. Jolie: I don't know. I mean, we don't. You know, I'm not a studio person. I'm not somebody who makes those decisions. I wanted to do the movie. You know, I'm not going to apologize for being American; I happen to be and I care about these issues. Some people say, `Why is there a love story?' There are great love stories. Why there is one in this story is because, one, it's not a documentary, and we're hoping that it can be accessible to everybody and maybe introduce people who aren't like you, people who maybe wouldn't look twice at these issues. We want them to see something maybe they think they can relate to and then show them something that they maybe haven't been aware of yet.

Simon: I have read that you are now considered one of the--I think it's a 25 or 50 most influential philanthropists in the world?

A. Jolie: Yeah. I read that. I don't know what that means, but I read that, and it just, you know, made me happy. I'm happy to be doing--you know, if I'm a part of something good. But, yeah, I certainly know what to do with success now, whereas before it just meant that I was doing a good job as an actor. But now at least I know what I can do financially if I have great success. I can support the organizations that are in the field and doing things that I would love to do, but I think I'm more useful sometimes being an actor and then supporting them because they really know what they're doing in the field.

Simon: Ms. Jolie, nice talking to you.

A. Jolie: Nice talking to you.

Simon: Angelina Jolie, who stars in "Beyond Borders." She's also goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She spoke with us from United Nations where she was given the Citizen of the World Award.

Beyond Borders worldwide DVD releases