Harper\'s Bazaar USA - 12.2019

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HARPER’S BAZAAR: We recognize in these photos the

free-spirited, bold side of you we know from old. Is that a

fair characterization?

ANGELINA JOLIE: My body has been through a lot over

the past decade, particularly the past four years, and I have

both the visible and invisible scars to show for it. The invisi-

ble ones are harder to wrestle with. Life takes many turns.

Sometimes you get hurt, you see those you love in pain, and

you can’t be as free and open as your spirit desires. It’s not

new or old, but I do feel the blood returning to my body.

HB: Do you feel like you’re finding yourself again?

AJ: The part of us that is free, wild, open, curious can get

shut down by life. By pain or by harm. My children know

my true self, and they have helped me to find it again and

to embrace it. They have been through a lot. I learn from

their strength. As parents, we encourage our kids to embrace

all that they are, and all that they know in their hearts to be

right, and they look back at us and want the same for us.

HB: As a mother of six, in a world of social media on a

public stage, under relentless scrutiny, how do you teach

your kids to be bold?

AJ: Knowing our true self is a very important question for

all of us. Especially a child. I think kids need to be able to

say, “Here’s who I am, and what I believe.” We can’t prevent

them from experiencing pain, heartache, physical pain, and

loss. But we can teach them to live better through it.

HB: As a public figure, how do you deal with the frustration

of constantly being misunderstood? What do you think is

the biggest misconception about you?

AJ: I have a tattoo, “A prayer for the wild at heart kept in

cages.” I got it when I was 20. I was with my mom one

evening, and I was feeling lost. I was restless—always. I still

am. We were driving to dinner, and she talked about spend-

ing time with Tennessee Williams and how much she loved

his words. She told me he wrote that, about the wild at

heart. We drove to a tattoo parlor, and I got it inked on my

left arm. What she did for me that night was to remind me

that the wild within me is alright and a part of me.

I see so much beauty in other people. Not when they

are pretending to be something other than their true selves.

Not when they are harming others. Not when they lie.

But the wild ones. The emotional, open, searching ones,

longing to be free. The honest ones. Because anything else

is a cage impossible to live in.

HB: This is our end-of-year edition. Looking ahead to

2020, do you have a message for our readers?

AJ: My dream for everyone in 2020 is to remember who

they are and to be who they are regardless of what might

be disrupting their ability to be free. If you feel you are not

living your life fully, try to identify what it is or who it is

that is blocking you from breathing. Identify and fight past

whatever is oppressing you. That takes many forms, and it

is going to be a different fight for everyone. I say this with

a deep understanding that for so many women, freedom

is simply not an option. Their own system, community,

family, government works against them and is part of what

is shutting them down. I’m reading the book No Visible

Bruises, which points out that between 2000 and 2006

more American women died from domestic homicide

than American soldiers died on the battlefield. It is shock-

ing that across the world the most dangerous place for

women today is the home. There are still more than a dozen

countries where violence against a wife or family member

is legal. And more than 10 countries where perpetrators

of rape can still escape prosecution if they marry the vic-

tim. And there are more than 70 million forcibly displaced

people worldwide, including nearly 26 million refugees.

None of this is just “the way the world is.” It is something

monstrously out of balance. And our response can’t be to

shrug or to think only about our own countries, because

we are all connected. This is a time to fight. If there is a

fight in this life, it must be for freedoms and rights. And if

we have our freedom, we must fight for others who don’t.

HB: Sounds rebellious.

AJ: If nobody ever rebelled, nothing would ever change.

HB: As a woman, what does it mean to be truly free? And

to live boldly?

AJ: A life fully lived is very hard to do. And for many

women it is impossible because of what they are up against.

I am conscious every day that I have the freedom to speak

openly and to make my own choices. And the ability to

encourage my children to explore the world, including the

world of ideas and expression, without there being limits

to what they are allowed to study or know or imagine

themselves doing in the future. I think we all know bold-

ness when we see it. Nothing makes me smile more than

when I see someone being fully themselves, with their

own individual style and character, whatever that is. ➤

“When you have a loud mind, as I do,

you go to places that quiet you.”

Change agent. BEAUTY BAZAAR Paint the perfect cat-eye using Guerlain Liquid Eyeliner in Noir Ebène ($44).