Angelina Jolie, 44, opened up about her emotional response to the world’s challenges when she sat down to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and how it can put children at risk with California’s surgeon general Dr. Nadine Burke Harris for a video that was released with an article she wrote for TIME magazine. In the discussion, the award-winning actress admitted she has cried more than once in the past whenever she’d hear about suffering throughout the world but she soon realized she needed to take action instead of just express emotion to make a real difference and help those she could help.
“There was a time in my life when I became more aware of what was happening around the world and what happens in our own country and what happens in people’s lives,” she started explaining to Dr. Harris in the video. “And I opened up and I hoped that I could be useful and I really can’t think what else life is about other than somehow finding a way of being useful but in the beginning I wrote a journal and I wrote just because I would cry all the time so if I was writing people wouldn’t see that I was crying and then there was this wonderful grandmother who was taking care of all these kids and she lost all her siblings and she saw me crying. I thought I was being very emotional and very connected and she just said, ‘I don’t need you to cry, I need you to help me.'”
Angelina, who is a mother-of-six who co-parents with ex-husband Brad Pitt, 56, went on to say the encounter with the woman helped her to know that although she had those empathetic feelings, she needed to put them into action and she feels very fortunate that she has the opportunities she has to do just that.
In addition to discussing what she learned in her past, she discussed how trauma and stress can make children more susceptible to illnesses and how it’s important to maintain connections with people in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic despite having to stay in quarantine. “I think it is so important that people hear that,” she said when Dr. Harris brought up the need for people to stay close. “To love each other, check in with each other. Be there, be a support group, keep your eyes open whether you are a teacher or a friend.”