Angelina Jolie on Transforming into Maleficent and Finding Her Voice #MaleficentEvent

Here we are, 25 bloggers in a tiny interview room waiting for Angelina Joile to arrive, and as surreal as that sounds, it really was. We all knew that at any moment she would be walking through the door, and by the nervous silence in the room you knew we were all anxious.

As she came in and took her seat at the table positioned in front of us she exclaimed…

Oh, this is so fun. I was so curious what this group of “Mommy Bloggers” was. This is fantastic! 

She was stunning! She looked just as you’d expect her to look but even more beautiful.

The first question we asked as we all exhaled, even Angelina herself, was what brought you to this moment with a family Disney movie?

She answered that she had read this script and was just so moved by it and went on to say…..

I was moved by it, as a mother. But I was also really moved by it because I thought of myself as a little girl, and I thought of all the kids I know, and I just think of that thing of feeling different, feeling like an outsider, and also as a woman, feeling abused and this ideal if you’ve ever been abused and then you as a woman, put this wall up.

You become darker and you’re not able to be this soft person that you were born to be. And then what could possibly ever bring you back? The thing that brings her back is very much the thing that brought me back. And so, I was very, very connected to it.

We wondered and asked how much of the Maleficent story did she know before she read the script?

 I didn’t really know anything. When I was a little girl I was fascinated by her. I didn’t really identify with the princesses, at the time. Princesses have gotten a little more modern. Seeing Maleficent was  like a little kid seeing Marlene Dietrich for the first time.  It was like seeing this elegant, powerful woman who seemed to be having a great time, so I was a bit fascinated by her.

Then when there was a rumor that the movie was going to be made, I got a call from my brother and he was like, “Ang, you’ve got to, you’ve got to make a call to Disney, you got to try to get in on this”. So I was very happy when I got the call. So just the idea of-of a Disney movie, having children and just being a big kid myself, and wanting to do a little bit of that was fun. I really didn’t know how could you possibly make a story where people have any connection to, or empathy for, somebody that curses a baby? It’s going to be impossible. I think she (Linda) did an extraordinary job.

The number one question we all wanted to know, and I am sure crosses the mind of everyone when they see her in those majestic trademark horns, the beautifully gothic costume and the makeup, is how long did it take them to transform her into Maleficent, The Mistress of all Evil?

I was surprised when she answered 2 and a half hours, I was sure it was longer since there were some prosthetic pieces used on her face. She goes on to explain just how cumbersome the horns were at first and how they helped to make them more comfortable for her.

 They were so great and sweet in that they worked so hard to make it not heavy. My hair was in these really funny little-little buns in order to get the head piece on, my hair was used as kind of the thing that held the head piece and the horns on. They made it very lightweight and they they also had detachable horns, partially for weight, and also because I kept knocking myself out. If I’d go out the door, because I was about seven and a half foot high, and I’d contact something. So the first few days, I was just a complete mess, so they made them so I could snap them (off).

She explained that having gone through many stages of trying to figure out just what the character of Maleficent should look like, she was really happy with the final result. She really wanted Maleficent’s emotions to show through and not be encumbered by a ton a of makeup but still look like a creature in the end.

Maleficent’s voice in the film is very unique, and almost quite haunting, so we asked her how she came up with the voice, and whether she just practiced in the mirror until one of the voices felt right.

 My kids helped me find it. I always tell stories, I’m sure we all have a few voices. I tell them stories and I was giving them baths and I was doing this thing where a few nights in a row I would tell them stories in the bath. I was trying out voices and a few they’d say, please stop, and sometimes they’d listen and be more engaged, so I kept trying and trying and trying.

Then I did that voice and they couldn’t stop laughing, so I kept doing it more, and more, and more, and more, and more. They still make me do it. I had to do it the other night for bedtime. So for the look and everything, I would kind of run it by them, and if it made them happy, or made them smile, or they were interested in it, then it was right.

I can’t tell you how much this answer changed the way I looked at her. She is the gorgeous movie star and she is talking about giving her children baths and telling them stories, something you can’t quite picture someone of her caliber doing. She’s a Mom, and for the first time I saw her as one of us which was a pretty cool feeling.

We touched on her humanitarian efforts and asked how we as Moms could start small in our community. Her answer was so empowering……..

 Well I think first,  of every-every mom, the most important thing we do is we raise our children with love and compassion to become great people and thoughtful of others, that’s the most important thing. If everybody did just that, we’d have a very different world. Encourage our children’s education and help them to be conscious of the world around them. I think mothers have the most powerful role. There was even examples of Taliban fighters who stopped because their mothers stopped them because the mothers became educated. They couldn’t stop the men, but they, educate the mothers and the mothers got them back home.

So the mother’s a powerful thing. There is so much to connect to (online)  is so much that can be done, as you see now with the situation with the Nigerian girls, that’s not government, that’s the masses speaking out and pushing for government change. So sometimes it doesn’t feel like every voice counts, but it really does. There’s a conference in June I’d love you to be aware of that I’m doing, June 10th to the 13th called PSVI (Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict). It’s the largest summit ever to end sexual violence in conflict. It’s in England, and open to the public. Everybody has to come together. So NATO will be there, peace keepers will be there, governments will be there. NGO’s, and victims, and doctors will also be there, so everybody together will spend four days working together.

In the film, her daughter Vivienne makes an appearance as Aurora when she was a small child. We inquired about how that came to be and how it was to work with her.

It was a tough choice to do it.  In person I kept thinking I was a Disney character and I’d want to talk to them (little kids), and they’d get mad and essentially leave. So we realized what four or five year old little girl is going to let me be really mean to and say things like, I don’t like children, and have her be fine. Then we realized it was probably Viv, but it took us a while to make sure that that was an okay thing to do. But at the end of the day, I just wanted to play with her.

It was really fun even though the first day she had to catch the butterfly and like any four year old, she just decided she didn’t want to. So there’s some really, really funny outtakes of Brad and I – I have the stick with the blue ball, that’s supposed to be the butterfly and I’m kind of running in front of her and Brad’s off the edge of the cliff, kind of trying to dance and make her jump into his arms. She made us work all for that. The people at Disney did say it was the funniest dailies that they’d ever seen, and it exists somewhere, I haven’t seen them, I should get them. But it was lovely. It was lovely to do it.

On a side note, this was one of the sweetest scenes for me in the movie, the love she has for her comes through the screen even as Maleficent.

She was then asked how she as a Mom, humanitarian, and actress does it all, which many of us wonder I am sure. Her answer was so genuine and real……..

 Well I don’t, you know, I’m in a very lucky position. I have a supportive partner and he and I are able to take turns working. When you make a film, it doesn’t take all year around. When I direct it does, but I get to decide when I leave in the morning and when I come home at night, and I can edit in my bedroom. So I have a very rare luxury with my job to be able to have my kids with me on set every day and homeschool. Other mothers have it much harder than I do, and don’t have the means to have the assistance I do.

I don’t feel like I, by any means, do anything exceptional. My mom was a single mom and she had a lot of difficulty and she gave up her dreams to make sure she could take me to my auditions and support me, and nobody acknowledged her for what she did, so that was hard. But, mine’s not too bad at all. I can’t complain.

I had heard stories online and in the media about the first time her kids saw her in costume. Angelina explains what happened and even goes into what she called a bad parenting moment.

I realized it was a bad idea, and it was bad parenting on my part that I should have brought them in early and have them watch me get in my makeup. But I thought it would be really fun to surprise them, so they came in (saw me) and some of them were fine, they just got a little, you know, quiet. One, Pax, ran away from me and I made the mistake of thinking he was playing a game and I chased after him. And then realized he was upset. He had to come in the makeup trailer and watch me take everything off.

It was interesting because we wondered, we actually wondered about Maleficent, we talked with Disney, like why is she considered the most evil? I mean, obviously what she does, but what is it about children when they see her, and I think that’s what happened to my children. It was that because it’s a woman, an older woman… its mom, and to my kids it was that a woman that should be nurturing.

After the interview portion was over she was asked to take a group photo with us and she graciously said yes…….

I am the redhead right next to her on the right. As I was walking to get into place for the picture I had my head down and was just focused on getting to the right spot so I could be seen. I turned around and heard “Is that a Maleficent scarf?” as someone reached out and grabbed my scarf, I looked up and it was Angelina Jolie!!! I said that it was and she said that it was “So cool”  I don’t remember the actual picture being taken, so that goofy grin I have on my face was me being in la la land because she spoke to me.

I will never forget this interview, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to do this. As I touched on, this interview made me change my whole perspective and see her in an entirely different light…..a smart, beautiful, eloquent Mom, who happens to be a movie star.

MALEFICENT will be in theaters 5/30/14! ‪

Make sure you follow Maleficent on Twitter for more to be revealed.

Follow Disney Studios on Instagram
 
Follow Disney Studios on Pinterest
 
Follow Disney on Tumblr

Check out the Maleficent YouTube Playlist

Disclosure:  I was provided with an all expense paid trip by Disney. This is accordance with Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255 Guides Concerning the Use of. Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.