Angelina Jolie’s first feature-film directorial effort, 2011’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey” was an auspicious debut and received strong reviews and a Golden Globe Award Best nomination for Best Foreign Language film. It wasn’t surprising that the urge to continue a career as a filmmaker persisted in Jolie, even as the subject matter of another directorial effort eluded her. “I would be lying in bed thinking I want to do something meaningful. But what was it? I needed some help, some guidance,” she gives.
The living, breathing embodiment of the guidance Jolie sought, and of the themes and values that pique her interest—courage and endurance, the resilience of the human spirit, faith, forgiveness and redemption—turned out to be quite nearby. She found it wholly in the person of one of her neighbors, a living legend whose home, unbeknownst to her, was nearby her family’s house in the Hollywood Hills.
