Quotes from Angelina that was published in the following years:
1997:
“There’s something about death that is comforting.”
“The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.”
“When I got my first tattoo, I got death, and Jonny got courage. While he was doing Trainspotting, I was in Scotland and wanted to get another one, but I didn’t know what to get, so I just got courage. I thought, “Oh, I’ll just match his.” But it was never really me.” [On why she had her ‘courage’ tattoo removed]
1999:
“I’m a very straight forward person.”
“There’s just never been a lack of love between us. I really enjoy talking on the phone and missing him” [On Jonny Lee Miller]
“People have even said, ‘Be careful what you talk about. Don’t talk about things that are weird.’ And a lot of the things I talk about, I don’t think are weird. You know, if I choose to talk about something I did when I was 14 years old, and have scars from it, I talk about it because I have learned things from it. And if I choose to talk about a relationship with a woman, I’m talking about it because it’s something I’ve learned about, and it’s a beautiful thing. But they just want to sell magazines. And they’ll take a quick sound bite and make it a full article, which really does infuriate me, because nobody has learned anything.” [On baring herself in interviews]
“He’s been talking to me recently about press-not saying certain things, or being prepared to say things. I felt like explaining to him that when he was my age, the press was a little different. And you know, he’s also not a young woman. So he can advise me however he wants, but they’ll allow him to talk about things going on in Ireland and the Native American people and his process for his work. They don’t ask me those things.” [On her father talking to her about the press]
“I won’t allow myself to be censored despite what other people advise me.”
“And you know I still turn up at shoots where I am asked to wear skimpy bra tops and short skirts. And I don’t wear that shit normally.”
“But I do get wound up by all this because if you do talk to the press, it’s no surprised if they ask you about your sexual practices. And I’ll answer anything, just as long as I can explain what I’ve learnt from experiences. I won’t get all precious…”
“We didn’t have a messy break up. I hated it when the press reported that. You know, we’re still good friends and might even find a way back to each other one day… Sometimes I don’t want to talk about stuff because it affects other people, like Jonny.” [On her separation from Jonny]
“Don’t make me out to sound too weird. It’s so easy to do and people and people write that who don’t know me at all. I look at the life of Winona Ryder and I don’t have any of the movie star lifestyle she has.”
“I won’t have a baby because I’m too selfish to devote and I think you have to give yourself up to 20 years of dedication…”
“I think my father’s always been afraid of a darker side of me. Y’know, whether it’s getting tattooed or my marriage. Just the way I live: the way I’d go out and do characters that are in that darker space, or disappear for days.”
“I’ve always been fascinated by the law.”
“You’re young, you’re crazy, you’re in bed and you’ve got knives. So shit happens.”
“We knew that we married young and that we needed to keep growing. But it was very difficult to separate from him.” [On Jonny]
“I don’t like to be touched. See, I like to be grabbed or held if someone genuinely wants to hold me, and if I’m not really touched, then I hate it. It’s like a handshake-I don’t like a light handshake. If you want to shake my hand, then shake my hand.”
“I knew nobody in New York. And suddenly I was there with a backpack, on the subways by myself and fixing my damn heater. Then I realised how much I wanted to be in this business and what a blessing it was to have a job. So I would up doing Pushing Tin because I wanted to do a comedy and play a heterosexual. That was very important because I’d gotten scripts that were just tough, gay girls.” [On briefly leaving the Film business and going to school in NYC]
“I haven’t figured it out yet. I think who you fall in love with has absolutely nothing to do with physical attraction.” [On her sexuality]
“God… terrified. Scared? About a year ago, I was really scared. When I finished Gia and I did certain things. I moved to New York, didn’t know anybody and didn’t know if I was gonna even be an actor anymore, went to school, didn’t know if I would miss being an actor. There were lots of terrifying moments, but for a few months, which included spending a Christmas alone… being on the subway a lot… I was terrified of being on my own.” [On the last time she was terrified]
“There was always this big thing with my father that if we just met on the street and we were strangers, how would we perceive each other.”
“I surfaced, and was so much stronger. I’m not hard on myself anymore. I simply don’t ask much of anybody but just to be who they are. ” [On taking time off of acting]
“My mum asked me if the prayer for the wild at heart was for me or if it was something that I thought had pained me throughout my life. But it’s for everybody I know. I don’t think I know one person who I think can be completely who they are every second of the day, who feels completely free. So it’s kind of a prayer for everybody to find their happiness, to break out. ” [On her tattoo]
“People always do think that because I have tattoos, I’m bad. Or that there’s something very dark about me, or that I think about death. And I’m probably the least morbid person. I’ve kind of discovered that if I think about death much more than some people have, it’s probably because I love life more than those people.”
“We would chase the boys around and kiss them a lot and they would scream. [On her kindergarten group called the Kissy Girls.]
“I had two good friends who became my boyfriends, and I think the school called my parents because we were in front of the school grabbing each other, and obviously that was disturbing to the parents and the people driving by.”
“And I played dress-up-I used to wear costumes all the time. I had this black velvet showgirl frilly thing with sparkles on my butt, and I used to love those plastic high heels. There’s a picture of me having my 5-year-old birthday party, I had curled my hair and put lipstick on, very girly.”
“When we moved back from New York, I had gotten really into leather. I think I loved Michael Jackson or something. I used to wear the leather jackets with the zippers, or collars with studs on them, and I used to ask if I could go to school wearing studs.” [On moving back to Los Angeles from New York as a child]
“My grandfather died when I was about nine and I’ve-well, not always hated funerals, but I’ve always felt that they were so not a celebration of the life of the person, and that the crossing over could be a beautiful thing and a time of comfort where people could reach out to each other. And I think there’s also just that it’s a tradition. Like, I never had a house growing up, I never had one home, I never had an attic that had old stuff in it. We always moved, lived in a lot of different apartments, and nobody ever owned anything, so I was never rooted anywhere. And I always really dreamed of having that attic of things that I could go back up and look at, or just anything, really-marks on the walls. And I feel like I’m very comfortable now living in hotels and not having that. But I also think that I’m very drawn to some things that are tradition, that are roots, and I think that may be why I focused on funerals.” [On wanting to be a funeral director]
“Maybe. That also had a lot to do just with committing very completely. Because it’s like I don’t have any pictures around of anybody else or myself; I don’t have anything that represents the past, so I commit very much to things that are probably very sentimental to most people. Like committing very much to marriage and having that bond, that means a great deal to me.” [On being questioned about marrying at 20]
“You know, people always say, ‘Well, what if you regret having tattoos?’ And there a re just so many things to regret in life that if there’s ever a day I regret having a tattoo, I can certainly live with that.”
“I think it’s probably healthy not to put too much thought into that. It’s an interesting thing, because I think we speak to each other a lot through our work. You don’t really know your parents in a certain way, and they don’t really know you. Like, you know, he met my husband and we’d go to dinner, but he still has his opinion of me as his daughter. So he can kind of watch a film and see how I am as a woman, the way I am dealing with a husband who’s been injured or they way I am crying alone. And it’s the same for me: I can watch films of his and just see who he is. But not growing up in the same house and feeling that he really did belong to the world… as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to communicate with him as a person.”
“I eat nothing but red meat.”
“That was a really bad time, because I didn’t think I had that much to offer. I didn’t think I could balance my life and my mind and my work. I was also very scared of getting public after doing that part and seeing how undernourished her private life was, how malnourished she was, though her exterior was very glamorous. So I’d be working and doing interviews, and then going home by myself and not knowing if I’d ever be in a relationship or be really good in my marriage or be a good mother one day or if I’d ever be… I don’t know, complete as a woman. It was a really sad time. But I think it was really good that I did it now, that I spent all those months on my own, having a very regular life, going to school at NYU, studying the different levels of how to get into this business, riding the subway back and forth and just being on my own.” [On her time out of acting]
“I don’t know how good a wife I was. And that’s the one thing that made it possible for me to be somewhat ok with us separating.” [On her time married to Jonny]
2000
“I’ve realised that being happy is a choice. You never want to rub anybody the wrong way or not be fun to be around, but you have to be happy. When I get logical and I don’t trust my instincts-that’s when I get in trouble.”
“I’ve been organising my schizophrenia.”
“If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I think I would probably be locked up.”
“They’d ask me to go back five years in my life and relive something, and at age six there isn’t much to work with.” [On using the Lee Strasberg ‘Method’ for acting]
“He kept me centered and we had a beautiful, amazing marriage. But our lives went in different directions. I actually felt like I handled it better than my parents. We were so completely honest.” [On her marriage to Jonny]
“Honestly, I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.”
“It’s like somebody saying, ‘Would you be with somebody tall or of a different race?’ It’s such a dumb question. I married a man because I need somebody physically stronger than me. It just feels nice. I am always on top. It’s really unfortunate. I am begging for the man that can put me on the bottom. Or the woman. Anybody that can take me down.”
“I’m never touching them again. I drink red wine and, occasionally, tequila, and if I have trouble sleeping, I take Tylenol PM. Like everybody else, I lost myself. But I think it’s braver to feel everything.” [On drugs]
“I have a dark reputation and people assume all kinds of things. I do have tattoos and I do wear leather, but there are other sides of me that my films express. And that is what people should be looking at.”
“Any time I said it was complex or difficult, it was because we’re exactly alike. We grew up arguing points and making each other laugh. I’m with my father a lot now, and I’m trying to remind him to be a kid. So I can be silly around him and he can be completely stupid with me and not feel that it’s bad parenting.”
“I think anybody that’s married to me is always going to feel like I’m not satisfied-and not understand that I’m just not satisfied with life. And when you love somebody, you want to solve that for them.”
“I’ve figured out that I’m never going to know who I am and I don’t want to know. I’m going to keep changing and it’s not a problem that I’m not settled. I’ve learned to live on impulse and let things fly. I’d be happy living in an Airstream trailer traveling across the country.”
“All women do have a different sense of sexuality, or sense of fun, or sense of like what’s sexy or cool or tough or-you know, I like to be maybe cleaner. Maybe it would be nice for someone my age to not see someone in like some see through tank top and jeans, but to see them in a cashmere sweater and slacks. Maybe that would be nice. Maybe they’d go in that direction more.”
“’Cause I’ve talked about, you know, everything. And just been really outspoken about my marriage and, you know, being with women, and they will take it and turn it into different things. So he’s kind of wanting me to be quiet [her father]. A lot of people have wanted me to be quiet. A lot of people wanted me to be quiet during Gia, to not say if I’d ever done any drugs, or had ever slept with a woman, which to me was being totally hypocritical. If I had, and if I could identify with the story that much more, and really saw a beautiful thing in another woman-so I thought it was nice to share what I had experienced, ‘cause I thought it was great-I didn’t see why it was so bad. And especially ‘cause that’s the movie. And because it’s-I don’t know-it’s honest.”
“Because personally, I need more sex, OK? Before I die I wanna taste everyone in the world.”
“I was being very honest about it for all those people that have done it. But people don’t explain it in the press, they make it sound cool and shallow.” [On self mutilation]
“I think that can be a bit annoying for anyone who gets my pants off. Then again, it’s in Latin, so I guess it’s only going to affect the intelligent ones! Everyone I’ve shown it to has understood.” [On her tattoo]
“I was married for three years and completely faithful and in love.” [On her marriage to Jonny]
“That’s OK, because I’m the actress most likely to have sex with them.” [In response to being voted the female celebrity straight females would have sex with]
“I was open about it because I wanted people to know that I’d been with a woman. I spoke about it because I’d discovered something wonderful and I thought people should know my experience was very real, very normal, and there were a lot of things I leaned. It was beautiful and different so I thought I would share it. But people decided to make it shocking. It was the same with the knives…”
“I never try to be controversial, and yet somehow I always seem to end up being just that.”
“It’s far easier walking into an interview and not have to be as good as John Voight and know that it isn’t about trying to get a script to him either.” [On having a stage surname]
“I wanted us to remake Cannonball Run but he won’t show anyone that side of his personality.” [On wanting to make a film with her father]
“If sane is thinking there’s something wrong with being different, then I’d rather be completely fucking mental.”
“Just because someone is open and uninhibited doesn’t mean you should tie her down and shoot her up full of shit. The more people realise that, the more I’m free to be who I am.”
“People say to me, ‘Be careful what you talk about. Don’t talk about things that are weird.’ But why are we all doing this if we’re not going to be who we are? What’s the point in writing an article trying to figure out who someone is, if the subject is afraid to show themselves to the world?”
“My father has made a choice to speak about me every time he does an interview. I’ve made a choice to not have it be about that. I got in this big fight with this interviewer: I said, ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’ He said, ‘Because you don’t like talking about him?’ And I said, ‘Okay, I’ll talk about him, but answer this, how’s your relationship with your father? Do you feel like he loved you?’ It’s strange isn’t it, for somebody to just come up to you and ask that.”
“People have said to me, ‘You’re too outspoken. Why are you talking about being gay?’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not gay, I played a gay character, Gia. It’s great when you discover that you love other women.”
“They’re right to think that about me, because I’m the person most likely to sleep with my female fans. I genuinely love other women. And I think they know that.”
“I’ve gotten in a lot of fights with people because I need to get a reaction.”
“I don’t need to be with a person, but I do want to start a family. I mean, selfishly, it would make my life so much fuller, worth living. I’ll have to have inspections. People have said to me, ‘You do the cover of Rolling Stone in a certain outfit and you talk about knives and being gay, the judge is going to see that.’ I’m the dark horse, so it’s like suddenly… But…”
“This person asked me about cutting myself when they saw a scar. I’m very open, but because of that, people think that they know everything about me, and, actually, they don’t know anything. I say things that other people might go through. That’s what artists should do-throw things out there and not be perfect and not have answers for anything and see if people understand. But this person made the cutting sound interesting, like it was something I do now. And then I met somebody who said they’d seen movies of mine and then showed me where they had cut themselves. I had to explain, first off, not to do that. But it made me really fucking angry at the people who represent me in a way that would get that person to do that and show me. I don’t understand why people would want to use something so damaging. It’s like, let’s make me look ‘cool’ and worry a lot of people in my family.”
“You just accept that you’re going to hear rumours about yourself. But I know the truth, and my people who love me know the truth. That’s all that really matters.”
“My brother just told me that he loves me… I am so in love with my brother right now.”
“He’s my best friend. He’s always been my strongest support.” [On her brother]
“I never felt settled or calm. You can’t really commit to life when you feel that. I think I just always wanted to be a good person, so I was always very worried, thinking that maybe I upset someone, maybe I wasn’t home enough for my family if I was off working, that I wasn’t there for my first husband, or that I wasn’t a good enough friend. And I’d go from film to film and almost detatch from one world and jump into another. And I was living as these people and not having a self. So it was not only that I was not a good person; I didn’t know who I was. And things just get really dark. And when you’re in that dark space, you’re so busy saving yourself that you can’t really help other people. You’re very selfish. Those people who are in that dark space, they’re not bad people, but your world becomes isolated, very much about your survival, how much time you’re choosing to spend unhappy, trying to fill that void…” [On a period of not wanting to live]
“I’m calm with him. I’ve found that I can be really soft. And I never was before. When I go home, I can really breathe. And I feel so, it’s just… I need it. Yeah. He is the air I breathe. It sounds so corny, it’s terrible. Seriously, have the time when I talk to him I’ll go, ‘My God, what happened to me?! I’m like a fucking Hallmark card!’ But I think it’s just a welcome relief o be able to just be settled. To actually know what home is.” [On her time with Billy Bob]
“I never knew what the word home meant. I used to think it was just various hotel rooms, and that I was one of those people-and I was kind of proud of it-who didn’t have a home, who didn’t fall in love… Even when I was married to my first husband-and I love him and we are friends-I would go away to work, and I wouldn’t tell him very much, and he didn’t want to know very much. Whereas with Billy, when he calls and wants to know what I did in the day, he really wants to know. And I love all the things he tells me about. It’s not something you just listen to. I’m just so excited to know what he did today. I can’t wait to call him tonight.”
“Original Sin came at a time in my life where I was really starting to understand what love was.”
“Sometimes I think he’s so amazing that I don’t know why he’s with me. I don’t know whether I’m good enough. But it doesn’t matter. What it is, is, if I make him happy, then I’m everything I want to be. I want to be able to make him happy. And if he says he’s proud of me, then I feel, you know, that’s who I am. I do trust that.” [On Billy Bob]
“I got so much shit from my friends for that ‘most beautiful’ thing. They’d see me first thing in the morning and go, ‘Ooh, look at that. Is that what the world’s most beautiful people look like?’”
“People interpret things strangely. And anyway, I do feel as if all that stuff has been like some sly move on my part so that people will focus on the tattoos and knife-collecting and, that way, won’t really know anything about the real me. Yet everyone somehow thinks they know all sorts of personal stuff about me.”
“I don’t believe in regret. I’m getting tattoos now in places where no-one can see them or know where they are. For me, they’re all about the moment-like when you jump out of a plane.”
“My father stopped making movies when I was about 12 and didn’t start again until I was working. So, he wasn’t on set or going to movie things. The best thing I learned was that acting didn’t fix his life. He would say to me, ‘Whatever anyone says about you, it is not who you are. You focus on your search. It’s a constant search and it never ends.”
“I’m completely and madly possessed with my husband. He’s the sexiest fucking creature that ever lived.” [On Billy Bob]
“People are probably going to think I’m out of my mind. They already think I’m sexually wacko-sleeping with my brother, dating other men, a vampire… ”
“The funny thing about this rumour with my brother is if I was, in fact, doing that? I’d say it. Everyone knows that about me!”
The remaining quotes will be up soon (2001-2008).
Others on Angelina:
“When you see a film like Gia, you recognise that Angelina has both technical ability and guts-she was willing to put herself out there. There was a lot of nakedness in that picture, and she didn’t shy away from it. Our script didn’t call for nudity, but for her to bare herself emotionally-that was crucial in us wanting to cast her.” – Philip Noyce, Director: The Bone Collector
“We were looking for a very specific actress for The Bone Collector she had to be young, in her midtwenties, with the strength to play a New York cop, as well as a very special vulnerability. The character is really the heart of the story; she comes into the life of the character played by Denzel Washington and reignites his will to live. And what I saw in Angelina’s performance in Gia was all those qualities: the strength and the vulnerability, and also a fearlessness, both in the character she played and-I realised when I met her-as an artist. Funnily enough the studio didn’t want her-they said, ‘Angelina who?’ Because as soon as the script came out, a lot of female actors came forward, including some very big names, who were willing to cut their fees to do the film. What finally happened was, in order to secure Angelina and Denzel, the studio put a cap on the budget and said the director and producer will pay the overages, to which we agreed. I put up a million dollars but there was no one else.” – Philip Noyce, Director: The Bone Collector
“She’s an extraordinary looking creature-like some weird, undiscovered orchid.” – Mike Newell, Director: Pushing Tin
“Angie walked in one day, sat down, and was Lisa. I felt like the luckiest boy on earth.” – James Mangold, Director: Girl, Interrupted
“Lisa would rip on Daisy. There was one night when I saw [Jolie off the set]. We were actually talking for a while. And then she said, ‘Wait a minute-what am I talkin’ to you for?!’ I said, ‘Can’t we take a break for a while?’” - Brittany Murphy, co-star: Girl, Interrupted
“I think Angelina went through a lot on the movie. But I don’t know, because I don’t know her that well. We weren’t exactly talking about it, because our characters have this strange relationship. But I know that Angie puts herself through a lot when she works. I would love someday to do a movie with her where we play really close friends, because I’d love to get to know her.” - Winona Ryder, co-star: Girl, Interrupted
“The media portrays Angelina as an eccentric, like everything she’s into is taboo and scary, but she is a hyperintelligent actress and a totally honest woman who doesn’t happen to agree with middle-class status duo crap.” – Geovanni Ribisi, co-star: Gone in 60 Seconds
