Angelina Jolie has long been more than just an actress. Her role as a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations has taken her around the world working with displaced civilians seeking asylum from war torn countries. Jolie sat down with Newsweek’s Janine de Giovanni in Budapest and described how her work with the United Nations high commissioner for refugees first exposed her to the aftermath of the Bosnian War of the mid-1990s and its impact on displaced civilians. This December, Jolie will make her directorial debut with In the Land of Blood and Honey, which takes place during the Bosnian War. The film features actors from the former Yugoslavia—many of whom lived through the war and lost family members. “The people felt as though the world had forgotten them,” Jolie told Giovanni. “It was a time of great pain and I wanted to depict how courageous people were—without offending anyone.”
View photographs from Jolie’s shoot in Budapest with Newsweek photographers Sofia Sanchez and Mauro Mongiello.
