It took shape during her downtime, when the kids were asleep, and became a career-altering passion. Now, as Angelina Jolie’s screenwriting and feature directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, hits theaters, the 36-year-old star is feeling more vulnerable than ever before. On Malta, Jolie tells how a tale of love and war in 1990s Bosnia took her far outside her comfort zone—and why Brad Pitt thinks it will make her a nightmare. It was a secret project, something she did for herself, when no one was photographing, suggesting, or looking over her shoulder. Every evening, after the […]

Here’s how Angelina Jolie enters the story: by water taxi speeding across the black water of a Venetian lagoon. She is seen from above, from the window of a very old palace—it had once been the home of a nobleman, then a monastery, then an embassy, and is now a hotel, which is the entire story of Venice. She sits in an antique chair and sighs. Her tattoos have been covered with makeup. Somewhere in town is Brad Pitt, with the six kids, the nannies, and the teachers and help. Johnny Depp, Jolie’s co-star in The Tourist, is somewhere here, […]