Angelina Jolie Biography

Angelina Jolie has enjoyed a long and successful career as an actress. She has won numerous awards for her work, including a Screen Actors Guild Award for "Gia," a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in 1999's "Girl, Interrupted," and three Golden Globes. She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for "Changeling," directed by Clint Eastwood, and received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in "The Tourist."

The daughter of Marcheline Bertrand and Jon Voight, acting was in Jolie's blood. She trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she was seen in several stage productions. She later joined the respected Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles.

Jolie began appearing in films and television in the mid-1990s, winning a first Golden Globe for her role as the wife of the controversial lead character in the 1997 small screen production of "George Wallace." She won a second Golden Globe the following year with her title role in "Gia,"a TV drama about supermodel Gia Carangi and her struggle with success, drugs and the AIDS that eventually killed her.

An early film from this time was "Playing God" and prior to that she starred in the Hallmark Hall of Fame's four-hour mini series, "True Women," based on Janice Woods Windle's best-selling historical novel. Jolie also starred in Annette Haywood-Carter's acclaimed "Foxfire" and Iain Softley's "Hackers."

In 1999, she played a rookie police officer opposite Denzel Washington's veteran detective in "The Bone Collector," a thriller directed by Phillip Noyce. She also co-starred in Mike Newell's "Pushing Tin," while "Playing by Heart" earned her The National Board of Review's award for Breakthrough Performance.

But her real breakthrough performance came in the same year with Jolie's mesmerizing portrayal of a mental patient in "Girl, Interrupted," which netted her the acting holy grail of a Golden Globe, Oscar and Screen Actors Guild Award. The film, based on a true story by Susanna Kayson, was directed by James Mangold and co-starred Winona Ryder.

The start of the new millenium was a busy period for Jolie, who appeared with Nicolas Cage and Robert Duvall as car thieves committing their final heist in the smash hit, "Gone in 60 Seconds." She was also seen opposite Antonio Banderas in "Original Sin." Jolie followed this in 2001 with the phenomenally successful "Tomb Raider," which was partly shot in Cambodia and helped her become a Hollywood superstar.

In 2002 she also appeared in the romantic comedy, "Life or Something Like," directed by Stephen Herek, where she plays a television reporter in a quest to find the meaning of life. And the following year she filmed the sequel to Tomb Raider - "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life."

She next starred in the thriller, "Taking Lives," with Ethan Hawke in 2004, a year after portraying a United Nations relief worker in the provocative drama, "Beyond Borders." In 2005, the actress co-starred with Brad Pitt in an amusing remake, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." She also appeared in Oliver Stone's ancient Greece epic, "Alexander," and action/adventure "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" with Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. She lent her voice to animated feature "Shark Tale."

In 2006, she appeared in Robert De Niro's "The Good Shepherd," a film about the early history of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as seen through the eyes of Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. She played Margaret Russell, Wilson's neglected wife. The following year, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary "A Place in Time," which captures life in 27 locations around the globe during a single moment in time. The film was premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In the same year, Jolie starred as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's documentary-style drama, "A Mighty Heart," about the 2002 kidnap and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. The film earned Jolie her fifth Golden Globe nomination and her third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. She also played Grendel's mother in Robert Zemeckis' animated epic, "Beowulf."

In 2008, Jolie co-starred alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in the action movie "Wanted." In the same year she provided the voice of Master Tigress in the animated movie "Kung Fu Panda." She also took on the lead role in "Changeling," a drama by Clint Eastwood. She played Christine Collins, who is reunited with her kidnapped son in 1928 in Los Angeles, only to realize the boy is an imposter.

In 2010, Jolie starred in the thriller "Salt" as CIA agent Evelyn Salt, who goes on the run after she is accused of being a KGB spy. That same year she played opposite Johnny Depp in "The Tourist."

In 2011, she again provided the voice of Master Tigress in box office hit "Kung Fu Panda 2." This same year she directed "In the Land of Blood and Honey," a love story set during the Bosnian war. The film features actors from the region and was filmed in English and Serbo-Croat.