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 There
aren’t many women out there who can top Jennifer Aniston. However,
proving once again that she is one of the sexiest women alive, Angelina
Jolie did just that on the set of her latest film, Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
by “stealing” one of America’s sexiest men away from the “Friends”
beauty, Mr. Jennifer Aniston himself, Brad Pitt. Of course, that’s the
stories the tabloids want to tell you. Regardless of whether or not it’s
true— or whether kids are really what drew Hollywood’s Barbie and Ken
apart— Mr. and Mrs. Smith has quickly become one of Hollywood’s
sure-fire summer blockbusters because audiences across the globe want to
see if Pitt and Jolie’s onscreen chemistry really is acting or not. The
film focuses on an unhappy married couple (who are secretly assassins)
who find themselves falling in love all over again when each is assigned
with the task to kill the other. While all the Pitt-Aniston-Jolie
publicity could harm the film [look at the effect the Bennifer publicity
had on Gigli and Jersey Girl], given the fact the love triangle involves
three of Hollywood’s most beloved stars— not to mention details of the
Pitt-Aniston divorce are slim to none— odds are in Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s
favor that all the tabloid coverage will only increase the film’s box
office gross. After all, who could really blame Brad Pitt if he did
happen to fall head-over-heels in love with the sexy and talented
Angelina Jolie?
Since breaking into the industry with 1998’s “Gia,” Jolie has not
only been making waves in Hollywood as an actress [who could ever forget
Jolie’s Oscar win for Girl, Interrupted], her off-screen behavior made
her the tabloid queen way before all this Jessica Simpson/Nick Lachey
breakup nonsense. From that highly publicized kiss with her brother
Jamie to her admiration for sharpened knives, there was always something
about Angelina Jolie that had the tabloids buzzing. But vials of blood
and tattoos aside, Jolie (who turns 30 on June 4th) is actually quite
normal. Maybe, similar to Madonna, motherhood changed Hollywood's former
"bad girl." Or maybe— just maybe— Hollywood loved to create wild,
unbelievable stories about the California beauty because she's so open
about her life. No matter what the topic, the press has always been fast
to put some sort of bizarre spin on Jolie's personal life. Her
ex-husband, Billy Bob Thornton, said it best, "forget any kind of vials
of blood we wear around our necks— if that was put in a movie it would
be romantic, but you do it in real life and they think you are
weirdoes."
"You read all of these crazy things about yourself, like dresses
getting stolen and things that you don't understand where they came
from, things like that," Jolie reflects about her celebrity status. "You
just read lies about yourself and it's so weird." What you don't read
very much about are Jolie's incredible contributions to humanity, like
her $1 million donation to an Afghanistan relief fund after 9/11 or her
$5 million donation to help build a much-needed wildlife sanctuary in
Cambodia. Sure the press covered Jolie's generous donations, but not
nearly as much as they covered her ex-husband [Thornton] wearing her
panties for a day. The biggest difference Jolie's made in someone else's
life though has to be with her son Maddox, who the star adopted while on
location in Africa filming 2003’s "Beyond Borders".
 And while
motherhood seemed like Jolie's most outrageous
role to date, it's clear just listening to the actress talk that she has
a new focus in life. "Being a parent is harder than anything I've ever
done, but it's also the greatest thing in the world, so it's really a very
delicate balance between the two,” she says. “He makes everything worthwhile, so it
makes it easy [juggling acting and parenting]." Watching Jolie and
Maddox everyday on-set may have just been enough to send Mr. Pitt’s
biological clock into a whirlwind. Or maybe parenthood had nothing to do
with it. Maybe Pitt was just drawn to Jolie’s down-to-earth personality.
Never one to shy away from speaking the truth, when asked why she thinks
she has such a dedicated fan base of both men and women who find her to
be one of the sexiest people on the planet, Jolie smiles as she replies,
"Probably because I love women as well as men. I don't really see the
difference between loving a man and loving a woman, so women shouldn't
feel threatened by me at all. I really love communicating with people. I need
to share and I feel very connected to everybody. I think most people
feel like they know me, and they actually do in many ways."
And unlike many other celebrities today, Jolie doesn’t take her
celebrity status lightly. “Being in the public's eye, I understand the
immense responsibility of being able to do things. I know that now I can
be in Sri Lanka and do certain things that I feel are important, and
that I can actually bring attention to them. I love that about being in
the public’s eye— that's a wonderful thing,” Jolie states. “The most
important thing to me is when somebody comes up to me on the street and
explains to me why they identified with something and maybe how it
helped them in their life. Even if it's something as simple as an
11-year-old coming up to me who's excited because he thinks I'm Lara
Croft, then that's really cool. That's better than any Oscar I could
ever have, and that's really the truth." UB
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