'I Was Transformed'

Angelina Jolie began traveling as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations some six years ago. She has visited the victims of violence in Africa, Pakistan and Cambodia—first as an observer in the background, then using her fame to draw attention to the plight of the helpless. The movie star spoke to NEWSWEEK's Christopher Dickey about her recent trip to a camp housing Darfur refugees in Chad, her response to critics of 'celebrity tourism' and why she and Brad Pitt like their current home in New Orleans. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What was your original motivation for working with the UNHCR, for doing these kinds of trips?
Angelina Jolie: I started traveling about seven years ago with film. I would go to places like Cambodia and hear about the many refugees in Thailand and hear about the land mines and hear about the history....I remember sitting up for two days straight and reading everything obsessively. I read about the UNHCR and I realized it was an agency that I didn't know anything about: that they were taking care of 20 million people. ... And I remember realizing that I couldn't understand how I had not known that my whole life.

When did it occur to you that you could do something about this directly? Did people approach you or —
I approached them. I think they thought I was a little crazy.

When was this?
Six years ago. I was very nervous to call the U.N. agency at the time. I [was] considered a rebel in Hollywood. At the time I was also a bit of the wild child. So first I went to Washington [to the UNHCR office] and I sat with everybody there and said, "You know, I know you don't know me. You might have heard things about me… And I don't want to bring negative attention to your agency. If you could just help me, I'll pay my way."

I spent the next year and a half going to, first, two camps in Africa, and then Pakistan and Cambodia. And with no cameras and with no press and had the opportunity to have this great education before I spoke at all…. I was transformed in such an amazing way.

But you do have photographers following you now.
It took me a while to agree to do it. I guess I saw that so many times the picture comes before the knowledge and the substance and I certainly didn't want to do that to myself or the organization. And also, I really just was shy. I was shy about sitting on the floor and talking to a woman and having a camera take a picture because I thought it was making less of my conversation with her. But… I was changed by the faces of the people I saw. "It is something that I am incapable of describing...those faces and that place and those people. And so—I think it's just-let the people speak for themselves through the camera. And if I can draw you in a little because I'm familiar, then that's great. Because I know that at the end you're not looking at me, you're looking at them.