CANNES, France – If you believe the tabloid media, or even if you don’t, Angelina Jolie hasn’t lacked for experiences in her life. Her relationship with Mariane Pearl, widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, however, brought her into contact with something completely new.
“It’s the first time,” the actress said, an indefinable expression crossing a face, “I’ve had a friendship with a journalist.”
To have attended the Monday afternoon news conference after the well-received screening of “A Mighty Heart,” the Michael Winterbottom-directed film about the Pearls’ story, is to glimpse why this is true. Bizarre even by Cannes’ elastic standards, the event featured an argument between journalists as to whether Pearl should answer in French or English as well as a public apology by another reporter for a question he’d asked Pearl in Pakistan in the aftermath of her husband’s death.
Several hours later, Jolie, whose forceful, immediate performance as Mariane Pearl is the heart of Winterbottom’s taut, involving film, is seated on the nearly deserted terrace of the Hotel du Cap, displaying the same level-headed focus and intelligence that enables her to survive the Cannes madness without a glove being laid on her.
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 remembered 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, her thoughts about the other Pakistani men who lost their lives in the same period, I didn’t know where that came from. I didn’t think I could have done it.”
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, Plan B, became the producer of the film, “When actor choices came up, it was Mariane who happened to mention me to him,” Jolie said. At that point, the future romantic companions “were just getting to know each other as friends.”
Because of this connection, Jolie (who said during the news conference that as late as “the night before shooting began, I didn’t know whether I could do it”) had great worries about the project.
“My fear,” she said, “was whether we could find any possible way to do this and make it feel close, make it feel real. If not, it would be some melodrama, some woman’s story. We used to talk about the day Mariane hears about Danny’s death with the camera slowly coming in for a close-up. And I’d say, ‘I don’t see how this is going to work.’”
Because of these fears, Jolie considers “A Mighty Heart” “the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. To represent somebody you truly respect, who has a very strong public presence and a lot of private pain, to try to embody all the elements of her in the right way, so people would feel a connection, it was something I really worried about.”
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 at moments,” Jolie admitted a bit reluctantly.
Jolie said one of the last scenes in “A Mighty Heart,” Mariane’s first TV interview after Daniel’s death, ended up being shot in the United States. “By some strange twist,” Jolie said, “my mother passed away just before we shot that. …
“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.”
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