One from the heart

Playing Mariane Pearl was the most difficult role of Angelina Jolie’s career

If you believe the tabloid media, or even if you don’t, Angelina Jolie hasn’t lacked for experiences in her life. But her relationship with Mariane Pearl, widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, brought her into contact with something completely new.

“It’s the first time,” the actress says, an indefinable expression crossing a face so striking it can be difficult to look at straight on, “I’ve had a friendship with a journalist.”

A Mighty Heart, the Michael Winterbottom-directed film about Pearls’ story, sees Jolie in a forceful, immediate performance as Mariane Pearl. Jolie’s friendship with Pearl, as it turns out, considerably predates the film. “Like most people in the world, I assumed Danny would be returned,” she remembers of Pearl’s 2002 kidnapping and execution in Pakistan. “When he wasn’t, I was moved by Mariane’s strength, I was shocked by it. To be able to speak about her love for that country, I didn’t think I could have done it.”

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United by an interest in Buddhism and motherhood, the women scheduled “a play date” and a friendship began. When Pearl’s autobiographical book came out and Brad Pitt’s production company became the producer, “it was Mariane who happened to mention me to him,” Jolie says.

At that point, the future romantic companions “were just getting to know each other as friends.” “My fear,” she says, “was whether we could find any possible way to do this and make it feel close, make it feel real. “

One of the curious places where Pearl’s story connects with Jolie’s are the moments when both have had to deal with hordes of insistent journalists camping out at their front door. “It did feel familiar,” Jolie admits, adding “but I have no idea what it feels like to go through it when your husband has been taken or killed. And when you’ve never seen it before.”

Asked about her methods of coping with the media madness that follows, Jolie gestures toward a small building on the hotel grounds. “I’ve got four kids, and there it’s quiet, peaceful,” she says. “I focus on all the luck I have. We (she and Pitt) have a full life, they keep us well distracted.”

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There are even more connections between Jolie’s life and Mariane Pearl’s. The actress relates that one of the last scenes in A Mighty Heart, Mariane’s first TV interview after Daniel’s death, ended up being shot in the US. “By some strange twist,” she says, “my mother passed away just before we shot that. It was such a great reminder of Mariane’s strength and how lucky I was to have had all those years with my mother. When I went on set, everyone was saying ‘I’m so sorry for your loss’ to me, and then they were saying the same thing to me as Mariane in the scene. It was really strange.”
Kenneth Turan (LAT-WP)