Angelina Jolie on ‘Unbroken’: I Learned to Be a Better Person

Angelina Jolie recently spoke about her experience making Unbroken, a film released Christmas Day about the late Olympian and World War Two hero Louis Zamperini.

Jolie had befriended prisoner-of-war Zamperini before his death earlier this year, and she admits meeting him and learning about his harrowing survival story made her make changes in her own life.

“I learned to be a better person. I learned to be more open to my fellow man, to understanding, to seeing the other side. I learned that when you have hate and anger and you let it eat you up, it’s only hurting you – it doesn’t hurt your enemy.” Jolie said to The Hollywood Reporter. “And I learned that when we look at the news today and we see all the things going on in the world and we feel like all is lost that in fact there is great strength. A strong heart and indomitable will and unbreakable spirit that exists in each one of us. It made me face every day and every challenge differently.”

“It’s going to make me raise my children differently. Because that fire we see in our children is a great thing, and I certainly was one of those people that thought this fire inside was maybe a bad thing. There is beauty to unrest and fight; we have to teach our children to channel it the right way,” Jolie also commented. “When Louis had an obstacle, no matter what it was, he thought, ‘Fantastic. I’m not going to be broken’. And broken is not about losing the war; broken is not about failing. Broken is about losing heart and losing sense of who you are and letting life take you off track or make you dark.”

Jolie’s biopic, Unbroken, hit theaters on Christmas Day.

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