Angelina Jolie shifts into action mode

Angelina Jolie goes from mum to action hero for her latest film, Salt.

After being considered for a Bond film, she relishes her role as CIA agent Evelyn Salt. "It's not Bond. It might be more Bourne than Bond in the end," says Jolie.

"I talked to Amy Pascal [co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment] because she had called me in about Casino Royale and we kind of had this lovely, playful talk about the fact that I would have preferred to play him — and that was kind of a joke."

So, did she enjoy the fight and action sequences as much as she did in the past? "Well this one is different," she says. "It's more rewarding in a way, to do an action movie that isn't just an action movie. She is one of the more interesting characters I've had the chance to play on film because she is more than one person — she's a few different personalities. So for me as an actress, that's a great challenge.

"It was really nice to do things that I thought were good and my family were with me, the kids were happy at school and then they would come to set, so it was a really nice time for me."

Have you seen Salt?

I've seen a rough cut and I really liked it. I'm terrible at watching my own films, But I did sit through Salt. I think it's interesting.

We wanted to try to find a way to make a film that didn't just do the obvious things that you would expect in these thrillers or these action movies.

I believe the role was originally written for a male lead and you have turned it around to make it a female lead. That in itself is interesting…

It is. I think when people write things intentionally, originally for women — at least with the films I've done in the past, either fantasy or comic book — they are not traditionally the more serious side of the action thriller genre. There is something cool and hip and fun about them, but they don't stay grounded in something a little raw and a little harder.

With Salt, the writers didn't necessarily sit down and think, "What would a woman do in this situation?" They just thought, ‘What would a CIA agent do?' And I think that immediately made it one of the better roles I've read and something that was much more challenging to do.

Were you involved in that process of changing it from a male protagonist into a female one?

Yeah I was. It was harder than we thought to switch it from a male to female. Because the challenges and surprises or how a man would react to a certain situation are not necessarily the same when it's a woman.

And then there was the fighting style; we had to adjust that too. But we got there, and the writers did a great job.

Females in [the Bond-type] films rely on being female, but we wanted to ignore that. She's just Salt. It's not about being a female and she certainly doesn't use her sexuality to get anything in the film. In fact, in many ways it's the roughest I've looked at a certain stage because when you fight it gets ugly and if somebody breaks your nose it's not pretty.

So the fight scenes are obviously very gritty and realistic. How did you approach them?

We talked a lot about the way she fights. Bourne has this wonderful way of fighting, Bond has a great way of fighting and all of these other action movies have this style and that style, and we thought, "Well, what should be right for Salt?"

And the thing that was maybe the least obvious for a woman became the thing that we relied on, which is that she's mean. Not like flashy, not like gymnastic, not like inventive, she's just mean when it comes down to it. So that was a different thing as a woman.

How long do you spend preparing for the fight scenes?

Well, on this one I wish we'd had more time, because the challenge wasn't just the fight scenes; it's a very dramatic story too. Sometimes the film is all about stunts and that's all you do and that's all you train for and it's what you concentrate on.

But this film had really heavy, heavy scenes and then sometimes you would have to do the stunts at the end, so you didn't have the week to prep. So it was that weird balance. But in some funny way the rush through made everything much more panicked and aggressive and it worked for the movie.

Is it empowering learning to do that physical stuff?

Yes, it certainly is, I think that sort of thing is empowering for all of us, not just me. It's like when people go to the gym, it's that thing where you get in touch with a primal part of yourself and it helps you to get centred and answer all these things. When they first called me about Salt, I had just had the twins and I was at home in my nightgown feeling very soft and maternal.

I remember I was with them in my bedroom, as you do in the early weeks when you've just had a baby, and I flipped through the script and it was all about getting out there and attacking and being very physical and I did feel really funny, in my nightgown in my bedroom, thinking, "If I can do this it would be a nice balance..." You know, from being soft and Mummy and then going back to work and doing this hard, physical role.

It seemed like a real challenge. And I like that.

So did you have to get super fit for this role?

I started when the babies were still small. I got as fit as I could going into it at that time in my life. I got relatively fit.

It was more getting back into the rhythm of making a movie like this. And for the first few days I was like, "How am I back here?" [laughs]

You know, I had done The Changeling and then I was home and then suddenly I was with a gun running down the street being chased and jumping off a bridge and thinking, "What am I doing? How did I get here? I'm not an action star — I'm somebody's Mum..."

But a few days into it you get into it and you get it back.

Do the kids love seeing you do that stuff?

They're all different, but the older ones do. They come out and they see some of the rigs and they just want to get on them. They like to get hooked on to things and fly across the stage and they did a lot of that when they came to visit. They would play with the fake blood and they would pretend to get cuts and bruises from the make-up department and they would have a lot of fun.

I read you got hurt. What happened?

It was first thing in the morning and I thought, "This is a piece of cake."

I jumped inside shooting and somehow I went right into this ledge that was about a foot off the floor and it knocked me right between the eyes and cut me open. After some on-set treatment, I was taken to hospital for a check-up.

It was fine. I had a cut on my head and they covered it up with a patch. And I was back shooting stunts that day. And it's funny because in the later scenes my nose is broken and I'm pretty cut up, so we didn't even have to cover it up — it blended right in.

Was part of you liking this story all the different layers to the character and playing with the notion of identity?

Yes, absolutely. I think you go through the film, if we have done our job right, not being sure of who she is and when you think you are sure of who she is maybe even that is different than you thought it was. It's interesting because people who have seen the film said they were surprised because they were rooting for somebody but they weren't sure if that person was a good person or a bad person.

And it's great, because usually studios say, "You have to have a clear hero, the audience needs a clear hero to root for and if this person is a questionable hero, or maybe not even a hero, maybe a villain, will you have the audience on side? Or will you lose them?" So that was an interesting challenge.

But I like that where you don't quite know what's going on. And hopefully we made it smart enough and respected the audience's intelligence and tried to make it complicated. I think they will like it.

One aspect of the film — one person who has to try and evade when all the machinery of the state is against her — reminded me of Three Days of the Condor...

I love that film. That was one of the films that we watched. We felt if we could learn anything that was the one where we could try to learn something from it. It's a great film.

Did you meet any real CIA operatives?

I did, I met the women. The two women I met were sweet looking, smallish framed, blue eyed, blonde haired, and looked like they would be running the little store in the High Street or maybe teaching in Ohio. But once you started talking to them you could see how these women navigated themselves through this incredibly demanding world and how dangerous it was. And they are tough, tough women.

And one of the things they told me was that as women they had such difficulty dealing with relationships, they said the hardest thing is to be in a job where you can't talk about anything that is happening with your husband.

They said that keeping track of the lies was very hard and made them feel distant from people outside of the CIA. And as woman, I think it was that little bit extra hard because they are nurturing by nature and emotional and it's hard not to want to share and talk.

You worked with (director) Philip Noyce on The Bone Collector. What was it like teaming up with him again?

It was fun. It was a decade ago that we worked together and we had both grown and changed, but yet we had a natural rhythm already there. We know each other's ways, so it was comfortable and we jumped in very quickly once we started working on the script and started talking about possible things and stunts and drama and characters, we had that immediate communication.

And how were Chiwetel Ejiofor and Liev Schreiber as co-stars?

I think the world of both of them. It's so interesting with Chewitel, because he can do so many things. I knew he was versatile, because I've seen him in Kinky Boots and other things and then here he is, the guy in the suit. He is so strong in the film and so good I almost wish he was in every scene, because he's so great.

And Liev, I would say is one of the hardest working actors when it comes to detail and character. I hadn't worked with him before and some actors come in and are just happy to play and jump into anything and in the most wonderful way he will question and try to find more depth in every single moment. He brings such a heavy intellectual approach and all the scenes become much richer and much deeper which is great.

How are Brad and the family?

Great, thanks. When you have kids they keep you busy and they make you laugh and they are the centre of your world. And that's the way it should be. We're very happy, thank you.