Angelina Jolie’s second directorial venture, Unbroken opening today, tells the story of Louis “Louie” Zamperini, (Jack O’Connell), a US Olympian who survived in a raft for 47 days after his bomber was downed in WWII. Based on a book by Laura Hillenbrand Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, the film also stars Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund and Finn Wittrock. In this interview, Jolie talks about the challenges and joy of the project. Excerpts.
This is your third directorial project. What was it like to be calling the shots once again?
I’m very happy as a director. I may be stressed, but I love every difficult challenge. I love seeing a story through from beginning to end. I like the nurturing aspect of it—building the family of crew and supporting everyone. I’m much happier not being that person out in the front.
What fascinated you about this particular project?
I imagine that for the last 10-something years, Louis has been sitting there having a coffee in the morning and wondering, ‘Who’s going to make this movie?’ And I’ve been sitting in my room laying there thinking, ‘What am I supposed to be doing with my life? I want to do something important. Where is it?’ And it was right outside my window.
It was such a strong reaction: ‘I don’t want to just make a movie—I want to evolve as a human being. I need and want to be near this man. It had to be something that I’d be able to walk away from having learned something. Also, and this sounds really cheesy, but I see so much horror in my U.N. work, and I wanted something that would help me and others know there’s a reason for hope. Something that can help you know we can fight through even the darkest times.
How challenging was it to capture the essence of Louis’s story, from being an Olympian to a World War II fighter?
As a director you’re that little bit removed where you have to try to really put yourself into everybody’s shoes. Including all these young men which made me less think about my own experiences but more about my sons, or things I know about Brad and the young men I have known in my life. With Unbroken I had many sleepless nights feeling, “Oh my god, I hope I can do good enough work and be worthy of this man’s story, to be a keeper of this man’s story.” And I was scared. But I worked hard and Louis made me feel that it was going to be all right.
Even when I didn’t have faith in myself during production he would remind me I was going to do a good job.
What did you learn about Zamperini from the personal rapport you share with him?
He was truly a great man. And he had this wonderful ability to, whenever he spent time with people, he saw greatness in others and he wanted them to realize their potential. So he would sit with you for hours and you felt focused and directed and wanting to yourself be better from being around him. And he was like that with everybody. He saw other people and he lit up. And when we made this film, he said, “Don’t make a film about how great I am or how exceptional I am; make a film that reminds people that they have greatness inside themselves.”
How do you relate your movies like Unbroken and In the Land of Blood and Honey about the Bosnian war to the work you have done with the U.N Refugee Agency?
When I did Blood and Honey , it was to try to understand how people who are friends, lovers could months later be murdering each other. How does that happen? I couldn’t understand the war in Bosnia — I was a teenager at the time. And it was a study for me so I could better do my work.
Unbroken for me was in a way the opposite. ... We have more refugees — we have more people — displaced from conflict today than we did after World War II. So the state of the world and our inability to prevent conflict and address the needs of people around the world was very upsetting to me. And so to read Louis' story was inspiring for me. It was a reminder to me of something to hold on to — our faith and the strength of the human spirit. And this can actually pull us through — it has in the past — and it's something to remember in our dark hours, that this exists. And I wanted to put that out into the world because I think we all need that right now.
