angelina jolie angelina jolie angelina jolie dcmg (/dʒoʊˈliː/; born angelina jolie voight; june 4, 1975) is an american actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. the recipient of numerous accolades, including an academy award and three golden globe awards, she has been named hollywood's highest-paid actress multiple times. angelina joliedcmgjolie in 2022bornangelina jolie voight (1975-06-04) june 4, 1975los angeles, california, u.s.other namesangelina jolie pittcitizenship united states cambodia occupationsactressfilmmakerhumanitarianyears active1982–presentworksfull listspouses jonny lee miller ​ ​(m. 1996; div. 2000)​ billy bob thornton ​ ​(m. 2000; div. 2003)​ brad pitt ​ ​(m. 2014; div. 2019)​children6parentsjon voight (father)marcheline bertrand (mother)relatives james haven (brother) barry voight (uncle) chip taylor (uncle) awardsfull listspecial envoy to the united nationshigh commissioner for refugeesin officeapril 17, 2012 – december 17, 2022high commissionerantónio guterres(2005–2015)filippo grandi(2016–2022)preceded byoffice established jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father, jon voight, in lookin' to get out (1982), and her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production cyborg 2 (1993), followed by her first leading role in a major film in hackers (1995). she starred in the biographical television films george wallace (1997) and gia (1998) and won the academy award for best supporting actress for her performance in the 1999 drama girl, interrupted. her starring role as the titular video game heroine in lara croft: tomb raider (2001) established her as a leading hollywood actress. she continued her action-star career with mr. & mrs. smith (2005), wanted (2008), salt (2010), and the tourist (2010), and received critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas a mighty heart (2007) and changeling (2008); the latter earned her a nomination for the academy award for best actress. her biggest commercial successes include the fantasy picture maleficent (2014), its 2019 sequel, and the superhero film eternals (2021). she has performed a voice role in the animation film series kung fu panda since 2008. jolie has also directed and written the war dramas in the land of blood and honey (2011), unbroken (2014), and first they killed my father (2017). jolie is known for her humanitarian efforts, for which she has received a jean hersholt humanitarian award and made an honorary dame commander of the order of st michael and st george, among other honors. she promotes various causes, including conservation, education, and women's rights, and is most noted for her advocacy on behalf of refugees as a special envoy for the united nations high commissioner for refugees, a position she held until 2022. jolie has undertaken over a dozen field missions globally to refugee camps and war zones; her visited countries include cambodia, sierra leone, tanzania, pakistan, afghanistan, syria, sudan, yemen, and ukraine. as a public figure, jolie has been cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in the american entertainment industry. she has been cited as the world's most beautiful woman by various media outlets. her personal life, including her relationships, marriages, and health, has been the subject of wide publicity. she is divorced from actors jonny lee miller, billy bob thornton and brad pitt. she has six children with pitt, three of whom were adopted internationally. early life and education jolie's father, actor jon voight, attending the 60th academy awards in 1988 angelina jolie voight was born on june 4, 1975, at cedars-sinai hospital in los angeles, california, to actors jon voight and marcheline bertrand. she is the sister of actor james haven as well as the niece of singer-songwriter chip taylor and geologist and volcanologist barry voight. her godparents are actors jacqueline bisset and maximilian schell. on her father's side, jolie is of german and slovak descent, while her mother was of french-canadian ancestry. jolie has claimed to have partial indigenous (iroquois) ancestry. following her parents' separation in 1976, she and her brother lived with their mother, who had abandoned her acting ambitions to focus on raising her children. jolie's mother raised her as a catholic but did not require her to go to church. as a child, she often watched films with her mother and it was this, rather than her father's successful career, that inspired her interest in acting, though she had a bit part in voight's lookin' to get out (1982) at age seven. when jolie was six years old, bertrand and her live-in partner, filmmaker bill day, moved the family to palisades, new york; they returned to los angeles five years later. jolie then decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the lee strasberg theatre institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions. jolie first attended beverly hills high school, where she felt isolated among the children of some of the area's affluent families because her mother managed on a more modest income. she was teased by other students, who targeted her for being extremely thin and for wearing glasses and braces. her early attempts at modeling, at her mother's insistence, proved unsuccessful. she then transferred to moreno high school, an alternative school, where she became a "punk outsider," wearing all-black clothing, going out moshing, and engaging in knife play with her live-in boyfriend. she dropped out of her acting classes and aspired to become a funeral director, taking at-home courses to study embalming. at age 16, after the relationship had ended, jolie graduated from high school and rented her own apartment before returning to theater studies, though in 2004 she referred to this period with the observation, "i am still at heart—and always will be—just a punk kid with tattoos." as a teenager, jolie found it difficult to emotionally connect with other people, and as a result she self-harmed, later commenting, "for some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me." she also struggled with insomnia and an eating disorder and began using drugs; by age 20, she had used "just about every drug possible," particularly heroin. jolie had episodes of depression and planned to commit suicide twice—at age 19 and again at 22, when she attempted to hire a hitman to kill her. when she was 24, she experienced a nervous breakdown and was admitted for 72 hours to ucla medical center's psychiatric ward. two years later, after adopting her first child, jolie found stability in her life, later stating, "i knew once i committed to maddox, i would never be self-destructive again." jolie has had a lifelong dysfunctional relationship with her father, which began when voight left the family when his daughter was less than a year old. she has said that from then on their time together was sporadic and usually carried out in front of the press. they reconciled when they appeared together in lara croft: tomb raider (2001), but their relationship again deteriorated. jolie petitioned the court to legally remove her surname, voight, in favor of her middle name, which she had long used as a stage name; the name change was granted on september 12, 2002. voight then went public with their estrangement during an appearance on access hollywood, in which he claimed jolie had "serious mental problems." at that point, her mother and brother also broke off contact with him. they did not speak for six and a half years but began rebuilding their relationship in the wake of bertrand's death from ovarian cancer on january 27, 2007 before going public with their reconciliation three years later. career early work (1991–1997) jolie committed to acting professionally at the age of 16, but initially found it difficult to pass auditions, often being told that her demeanor was "too dark." she appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the usc school of cinema-television, as well as in several music videos, namely lenny kravitz's "stand by my woman" (1991), antonello venditti's "alta marea" (1991), the lemonheads's "it's about time" (1993), and meat loaf's "rock and roll dreams come through" (1993). she began to learn from her father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them. their relationship during this time was less strained, with jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens." jolie began her professional film career in 1993, when she played her first leading role in the direct-to-video science-fiction sequel cyborg 2, as a near-human robot designed for corporate espionage and assassination. she was so disappointed with the film that she did not audition again for a year. following a supporting role in the independent film without evidence (1995), she starred in her first major studio film, hackers (1995). the new york times critic janet maslin wrote that jolie's character "stands out ... because she scowls even more sourly than and is that rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top." hackers failed to make a profit at the box office, but developed a cult following after its video release. the role in hackers is considered jolie's breakthrough. after starring in the modern-day romeo and juliet adaptation love is all there is (1996), jolie appeared in the road movie mojave moon (1996). in foxfire (1996) she played legs, a drifter who unites four teenage girls against a teacher who has sexually harassed them. jack mathews of the los angeles times wrote of her performance, "it took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but jolie, jon voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype. though the story is narrated by maddy, legs is the subject and the catalyst." in 1997, jolie starred with david duchovny in the thriller playing god, set in the los angeles underworld. the film was not well received by critics; chicago sun-times critic roger ebert wrote that jolie "finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be girlfriend, and maybe she is." her next work, as a frontierswoman in the cbs miniseries true women (1997), was even less successful; writing for the philadelphia inquirer, robert strauss dismissed her as "horrid, a fourth-rate scarlett o'hara" who relies on "gnashed teeth and overly pouted lips." jolie also starred in the music video for the rolling stones's "anybody seen my baby?" as a stripper who leaves mid-performance to wander new york city. rise to prominence (1998–2000) jolie's career prospects began to improve after she won a golden globe award for her performance in tnt's george wallace (1997), about the life of the segregationist alabama governor and presidential candidate george wallace, played by gary sinise. jolie portrayed wallace's second wife, cornelia, a performance lee winfrey of the philadelphia inquirer considered a highlight of the film. george wallace was very well received by critics and won, among other awards, the golden globe award for best miniseries or television film. jolie also received a nomination for an emmy award for her performance. jolie portrayed supermodel gia carangi in hbo's gia (1998). the film chronicles the destruction of carangi's life and career as a result of her addiction to heroin, and her decline and death from aids in the mid-1980s. vanessa vance of reel.com retrospectively noted, "jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular gia, and it's easy to see why. jolie is fierce in her portrayal—filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation—and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed." for the second consecutive year, jolie won a golden globe award and was nominated for an emmy award. she also won her first screen actors guild award. in accordance with lee strasberg's method acting, jolie preferred to stay in character in between scenes during many of her early films. while shooting gia, she told her husband, jonny lee miller, that she would not be able to phone him: "i'd tell him: 'i'm alone; i'm dying; i'm gay; i'm not going to see you for weeks.'" after gia wrapped, she briefly gave up acting, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give." she separated from miller and moved to new york, where she took night classes at new york university to study directing and screenwriting. encouraged by her golden globe award win for george wallace and the positive critical reception of gia, jolie resumed her career. following the previously filmed gangster film