Angelina Jolie talks about her evolving role as a mother and discusses the personal and political lessons she learned during the filming of her new movie A Mighty Heart

She is rarely out of the news and is talked about as much for her ever-growing 'rainbow family' as she is her latest acting exploits.

The mother of four recently finished filming A Mighty Heart, in which she plays the wife of American journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and executed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.

Parenthood and stardom

How do you juggle everything you do, and still be a mum?

Angelina Jolie: Well, we have the finances to have support and that's the truth of it. Any single woman on her own with kids, God bless her because that is hard. I have Brad helping me and we have a lot of people even just at airports, helping us get through. We do have a lot of support, so we're very lucky. We have it easier than a lot of people but certainly we do have to catch ourselves. We just spent a few days away, and then we flew back, and in the plane we had absolutely nobody around us for quite a while. We had the greatest, greatest time. We came back just wrecked but we love it. I think the work of it is part of the fun.

Is it more fun too, having Brad in your life now?

Angelina Jolie: Yes. Raising kids is a very hard thing to do and it's also a great joy. But it is so much easier when you have somebody who is supporting you through it. You need someone you can look over and smile at when something goes totally crazy; someone who is remembering this time with you. It's something that has made being a parent just mean so much more, now that I get to share it with somebody. It's also wonderful to have someone there for my children. They have a great father. Having that has just made the whole experience nicer. But everything is just getting crazier and crazier; whether it be at home, or all our work abroad.

How do your children cope with all the travel your family does?

Angelina Jolie: We've now done so much travelling together and our children are growing up, and their personalities are amazing. So we're just happy to be able to do those things. But yes, if anything, being able to survive the last year and have as much fun with our family as we did, now we feel like, what else can we do?

Will you have more kids?

Angelina Jolie: We want to have more children, and we want to live abroad more and do different things.

What do you like most about being a mum?

Angelina Jolie: I just love my kids. They're just fun. I think any parent is going to say that. My children are so interesting. I love talking to them. And now Mad's at an age where he writes me letters. We have the greatest conversations, my daughter too. She is the funniest, craziest little person. Like last night we were just sitting there, watching her and just in hysterics. And that's the joy of life, you know? They're just fun.

How do you think being a mother has changed you as an actress?

Angelina Jolie: It makes me want to work a lot less! If you noticed, the last few films I've done have been shorter and father apart. I think Good Shepherd I was on for five weeks. And the last two films were two years apart, so I don't work as much now.

You're almost as well known for your humanitarian work, as your acting. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the bad stuff going on in the world?

Angelina Jolie: Yes, you do get to the point where you realise you can't help everybody. But you do the best you can, with those you can help.

A Mighty Heart

What made you want to do this film?

Angelina Jolie: Even the first day of shooting, I was very hesitant and very scared to do this movie. I didn't think I would be good enough to pull it off. But I felt it was such an important thing to do and I believe very much in the message behind this story and the people in it.

Were there things with this film that you just didn't want to know or see, like the be-heading video?

Angelina Jolie: I would never go near that video, just out of respect for Mariane (Pearl) and for Danny. I think any acknowledgement of things like that tends to encourage more of it. Any attention paid to that kind of propaganda, is what causes future incidents like that.

There's a moment in the movie where you scream at the realisation that your husband has been be-headed. How did you summon up that emotion?

Angelina Jolie: You stay in a very strange state of mind. There are certain things that make you emotional and that remind you of the saddest things in your life. I tried not to think of any one thing but I'm sure images of my own mum, who was sick at the time, and thoughts of anything happening to people that I love, you know, just all of that.

What did you learn about yourself when working on A Mighty Heart?

Angelina Jolie: I think I learned to be more tolerant. I do think of myself as an open and tolerant person but I am quick to anger. I don't know if I would have had the strength to go through what she (Mariane Pearl) did. Especially when she went public, saying that there are Pakistanis being killed too and suffering, just like her husband. I couldn't understand how she could say that. So I learned from her the importance of having dialogue and trying to take the higher ground to find solutions. I've learned that, and that's a big lesson.

Any thoughts about Oscars for this movie?

Angelina Jolie: Oh, please don't bring that up. All that kind of stuff is fun, nice and sort of the icing on the cake. But if we're never acknowledged for awards, it means nothing because we made the film we cared about. That's all that matters.

Are you and Brad going to do any more movies together?

Angelina Jolie: I don't know. We were joking before that nobody's going to watch the children if we both go to work at the same time. But yes, maybe, if we can find something.