Angelina Jolie has had at least four separate careers: tabloid fixture, action star, Oscar-winning dramatic actress, and director. Running underneath all of them is a twenty-five-year humanitarian record that has taken her to more conflict zones than most foreign correspondents. The gap between how she is covered and what she actually does is one of the widest in Hollywood.
Quick Bio / At a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Angelina Jolie |
| Date of Birth | June 4, 1975 |
| Birthplace | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Parents | Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, both actors |
| Occupation | Actress, filmmaker, humanitarian |
| Academy Award | Best Supporting Actress, Girl, Interrupted (2000) |
| As Director | Unbroken, First They Killed My Father, Without Blood |
| Humanitarian Role | UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, then Special Envoy, 2001–2022 |
| Honour | Honorary Dame Commander (DCMG), 2014 |
| Children | Six |
| Recent Films | Maria (2024), Couture (2026) |
A Hollywood Childhood She Did Not Enjoy
Jolie was born in Los Angeles on June 4, 1975, to actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. Her parents separated when she was an infant and she was raised primarily by her mother.
Her relationship with her father has been publicly strained for most of her adult life. Her relationship with her mother was the formative one, and Bertrand’s death from ovarian cancer in 2007 shaped a great deal of what followed, including Jolie’s own medical decisions.
The Breakthrough
Gia and Girl, Interrupted
Her performance as model Gia Carangi in HBO’s Gia in 1998 won a Golden Globe and established her as a serious dramatic actor. Two years later, Girl, Interrupted won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She was twenty-four, and for roughly the next decade the coverage of her personal life ran considerably ahead of the coverage of her work.
Lara Croft and the Action Years
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001 made her a global box office star and one of the very few women of her generation to headline an action franchise. Mr. & Mrs. Smith followed in 2005, Wanted in 2008 and Salt in 2010.
Back to Drama
Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart in 2007 and Clint Eastwood’s Changeling in 2008 returned her to dramatic work, the latter bringing a Best Actress nomination. Disney’s Maleficent in 2014 and its 2019 sequel gave her a second commercial franchise.
Directing
Jolie has directed five features. In the Land of Blood and Honey in 2011 was set during the Bosnian War. Unbroken followed in 2014, and By the Sea in 2015.
The most significant is First They Killed My Father in 2017, a Khmer-language film about the Cambodian genocide made with Cambodian collaborators and cast. Her most recent directorial work is Without Blood.
The pattern is consistent: her films as a director are almost all about war, displacement and survival — the same subject as her humanitarian work.
Recent Work: Maria and Couture
In 2024 she played Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s Maria, the final film in his trilogy of portraits of twentieth-century women. It was widely regarded as her strongest performance in years.
She followed it with Couture, directed by Alice Winocour, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 and reached wider release in February 2026. Jolie plays Maxine Walker, an American independent horror director hired by a French fashion house to make an opening film for a Paris runway show. She has also returned to action with the project Sunny.
Humanitarian Work
Jolie became a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in 2001 and served as Special Envoy from 2012 until stepping down in 2022, after more than two decades and dozens of field missions.
She co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative with the then British Foreign Secretary William Hague, work for which she was appointed an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2014.
Health Disclosure
In 2013 Jolie disclosed in a New York Times op-ed that she carried a BRCA1 mutation and had undergone a preventive double mastectomy. In 2015 she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.
Both decisions followed her mother’s death from ovarian cancer. The disclosures measurably increased genetic testing rates, an effect researchers documented and named after her.
Marriages and Family
Jolie was married to Jonny Lee Miller and then to Billy Bob Thornton before marrying Brad Pitt in 2014. She filed for divorce in 2016; a settlement was filed in Los Angeles on December 30, 2024, ending an eight-year legal process. Its terms were kept confidential.
She has six children. She has also moved into fashion with Atelier Jolie, a New York venture built around collaborating with independent makers and refugee artisans.
Why She Is Hard to Categorise
Jolie is one of very few people to hold an acting Oscar, a UN envoy post, an honorary damehood and a franchise box office record simultaneously. The tabloid version of her career has always been the least interesting one available.
Related profiles: Brad Pitt and Michelle Monaghan.
