The curious case of Angelina Jolie’s... arms
By Mayo Martin, TODAY | Posted: 14 January 2009 0814 hrs

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SINGAPORE: Nearly a year ago, this reporter came face to face with the most beautiful woman on Earth — with the strangest flaw.

We’re talking about Angelina Jolie, that silver-screen queen who never fails to secure a spot in annual hottie lists by People, Time, Forbes and other venerable opinion-makers. (Her most recent accolade? Last week’s People’s Choice Award for Favourite Female Action Star.)

It was back in May during the Cannes Film Festival. She was still preggy with her US$15-million twins Knox and Vivienne (that’s $22.3 million — how much People magazine paid for pictures of the pair) and was promoting her acting talents as a cartoon tiger in Kung Fu Panda.

For all intents and purposes, our “encounter” with Angelina Jolie at one of the movie’s press conferences was enough to give this mere mortal bragging rights to last a year or two (“We made eye contact for, like, two full seconds ... Honest!”).

Ah yes, Miss Lara Croft the on-screen goddess would’ve been the perfect image to take to our deathbed — had it not been for one minor detail.

As she seductively lifted her cup of tea for a sip, the spell of her trademark pouty red lips was immediately shattered by the dastardly sight of ... her arms.

Crisscrossed by a web of bulging veins, Jolie’s arms would have gotten work as extras in The Lord of the Rings — as Treebeard’s sapling minions.

Traumatised by what we’re christening in hindsight as The Curious Case of Angelina Jolie’s Arms (with apologies to partner Brad Pitt), we later found out it wasn’t due to ageing (she’s only 33) but what British tabloid experts say is a result of too much exercise and too little diet supervision. Hear that Madge?

While we’ll remember 2008 as the year we made eye-contact with Angelina Jolie, the Oscar-winning actress spent the year keeping busy: Playing a big cat (Kung Fu Panda), an assassin (Wanted) and a tragic, wronged mother in Changeling, which opens in cinemas tomorrow.

One of the critics’ favourites at Cannes last year, the Clint Eastwood drama is based on a true story set in the 1920s.

Jolie’s performance as Christine Collins, a mother in search of her missing son, has earned acting nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globe Awards (where she recently lost out to Revolutionary Road’s Kate Winslet).

Shoving aside our personal reservations as to her workout routine, TODAY gets a lesson on why, for Angelina, beauty isn’t skin deep.

Is Changeling the film you hoped it would be?

Yes it is. I knew when I read the script that it had the potential to be a really good film — but you never know. You shoot something and you wonder what the director, the editor — you know, everybody who puts it together once the actors all leave — will do with it.

I think Clint has done a remarkable job.

Was it difficult for a contemporary woman to put yourself back in that period? Your character was a young single mother at a time when sexism was virtually institutionalised.

Yes and people really made her question herself as a woman. So, yeah, I certainly bit my tongue a few times and I’m sure there are a few takes when I crossed the line and rolled my eyes at the police (laughs) ...

I think the danger was if I had played it too “period” she would have lost any kind of fire at all because I was trying to be too meek.

There is a great moment where your character is in a psychiatric hospital and she tells the doctor: “F*** you and the horse you rode into town on.”

Yeah, that was good! And I did everything I could not to do it as Clint Eastwood! (Laughs) It was one of those lines that you can immediately hear Clint saying — and he’s standing right there!

Clint is a little bit older now. Does that change the way he is on set?

Yeah, he’s a little older now, but his energy levels are amazing. There’s nothing about him that is slowing down. The guy flies a helicopter and does weights during lunch — he is more active than I am. He is extraordinary. No, there’s nothing about him that feels like an older man at all.

He’s known for wrapping up a shoot very quickly. What was that like?

At first, when I heard the shoots were really quick, I thought maybe he was impatient with the game of it all right now. (Laughs) But you realise, no, he has such a sharp mind that it’s the opposite — he knows exactly what he wants.

Clint can just make a decision in a moment and he’s as sharp as anybody — he is the sharpest man I’ve ever met.

Do you like working quickly like that?

I certainly do. But he works really quickly! (Laughs)

Transcript courtesy of United International Pictures

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