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Angelina Jolie: Girl Interrupted
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Angelina Jolie started her acting career with the low budget production Cyborg 2 in 1993 and had her first leading role in a major film in 1995’s Hackers. She went on to appear in the critically acclaimed biopics George Wallace and Gia and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted. Jolie achieved international fame for her portrait of videogame heroine Lara Croft in 2001 and since then established herself as one of the best known and highest paid actresses in Hollywood. She had her biggest commercial success with the 2005 action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
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As an artist and an actress, Angelina Jolie seems drawn to the dark side. "There's something about death that is comforting. The thought you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now," she is quoted as saying. Coming from someone with an extensive dagger collection, the Japanese character for death tattooed on her shoulder, and a penchant for not-exactly-girl-next-door roles, this sentiment certainly rings true.
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Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.
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More film work readily followed for Jolie, initially in small-scale character-driven indies. In an indifferently received adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novel "Foxfire" (1996), Jolie played a mysterious outsider named Legs Sadovsky –described in Variety as "sort of a female James Dean" – who helps some other teenaged girls stand up for their rights. In Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna's romantic comedy-drama "Love Is All There Is" (1996), Jolie displayed a humorous and innocent light as half of a pair of star-crossed lovers divided by their families' feud. That same year, the actress appeared in the high-minded suspense drama "Without Evidence,†playing a drug-addicted teen, and "Mojave Moon,†opposite Danny Aiello. Next came "Playing God" (1997), in which Jolie capably essayed a woman torn between her gangster boyfriend (Timothy Hutton) and a discredited doctor (David Duchovny) in his employ. While the films remained largely unseen by most moviegoers, Jolie received strong notices for each of these projects.
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Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named "Maddox" and, in 2005, she adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named "Zahara". Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the film was not popular among critics or at the box office.
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Before she began her career as an actor, Angelina modeled and appeared in music videos. Her first starring role was in the 1995 film Hackers. In 1998 Jolie was nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of supermodel Gia Carangi in the TV film Gia. She won an Oscar for Girl, Interrupted (1999). She has starred as the title character in two Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movies and provided vocal talents to the animated feature Shark Tale. She starred opposite current boyfriend Pitt as an assassin in Mr. And Mrs. Smith.
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Girl Interrupted