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Angelina Jolie: I used to be unstable
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Angelina Jolie loves being a mom and her U.N. work.
Oscar winner Angelina Jolie is more centered these days, thanks to a stable family life and her deep involvement in humanitarian causes.
But Jolie, 34, had to overcome a self-destructive youth in order to get a point in her life where she's calm and happy. Angelina, who has six children with actor Brad Pitt, 45, says becoming a mom and getting involved with the United Nations have been major turning points in her life.
Previously, the award-winning actress was more focused on her career, but now Jolie happily says family is the most important thing in her life. "The kids are my priority, so it's possible that from now on I will make fewer movies," Jolie told Italian Vanity Fair. "I no longer have the ambition I had in my 20s."
Jolie, who gave birth to twins Knox and Vivienne in July 2008, is currently filming her upcoming spy thriller, Salt, in New York and Washington, D.C. In the espionage flick, Angelina plays Evelyn A. Salt, a rogue CIA agent who tries to clear her name after being accused of being a Russian sleeper spy.
When not filming, Jolie spends time with her growing family and promotes humanitarian causes. On June 19, Angelina made international headlines when she and Brad donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants. Over the past decade, Jolie has donated millions of dollars to charity and has traveled extensively on humanitarian missions as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador.
In her teens and early twenties, Angelina admits she was sometimes self-destructive, experimenting with drugs and going through bouts of severe depression. "I knew little about the world and I was completely self-absorbed," says Jolie.
Angelina has openly spoken of her teenage self-loathing, which led to cutting herself with knives, her fascination with death (she had once considered a career as a funeral director), thoughts of suicide, and undefined feelings of frustration. Looking back on this period in 2003, she explained:
"I used to think I was unstable, because I had this thirst for something. I could never figure out what it was. I couldn't sleep at night, and I always wanted to be somewhere else, and I have a window tattooed, this little box, and it's because wherever I was, I wanted to be somewhere else. And I always saw myself -- wherever I was in life -- staring out the window."
In 2001, Jolie was named the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Since then, she has visited UNHCR refugee operations in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Cambodia, Thailand, Pakistan and Ecuador.
The experience completely changed her outlook. "I've become a better human being," Jolie has said. "I've learned the strength of the human spirit. I see different aid workers in camps helping each other from everywhere - people who have come together from all over the world to help. It's changed my view of what is important. I'm not so concerned with things I used to be so concerned with. I feel that [now] I'm of some use to other people in the world."
Becoming a mom has been a similarly transformative experience (Jolie adopted son Maddox in 2002 and has since adopted two other children and given birth to 3). "It was only when I came out of my shell and started taking care of others that I found the real Angelina."
Jolie, who trained rigorously to play Lara Croft (in 2001 & 2003), now embraces healthy eating and workout habits, saying she loves martial arts. "Physical exercise is ideal, it's much better than sitting in front of the TV or the computer screen," she says.
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