Happy Birthday, Angelina Jolie: 5 of her most memorable performances to date

Jolie was never really a newcomer in the industry because her parents are Jon Voight and the late Marcheline Bertrand, but HBO television movie Gia put Jolie on the map in a different way.

Jolie portrayed late supermodel Gia Carangi, who had battled a heroin addiction before dying of AIDS in 1986. The role earned her her first Screen Actors Guild Award and her second Golden Globe as well as a Primetime Emmy nomination.

"I was so sad for her," Jolie told BuzzFeed in 2014. "Playing a real person you identify with and can feel makes you feel a responsibility. Then you live inside her world for a bit and you just feel so deeply sad that she never really knew love and felt she was of value other than a thing or a face. And at that time, with AIDS, I can't even imagine how she must have felt about how she was treated."

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Similar to Gia, Girl, Interrupted was based upon author Susanna Kaysen's internal strife. More specifically, the James Mangold-directed film was an adaptation from Kaysen's memoir by the same name about her 18-month stint in a mental hospital.

The difference for Jolie was that she did not portray Susanna. Winona Ryder did. But Jolie won her Oscar for her supporting role as Lisa, a diagnosed sociopath who bonds with Susanna in the hospital. The cast also boasted the late Brittany Murphy, Clea DuVall, Elisabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Whoopi Goldberg, and more.

"I really, genuinely thought I was the only character who was sane in the entire film," Jolie told BuzzFeed in 2014. "And if you watch it closely, that's exactly how I was playing it: I am just the only sane person here. I was actually almost upset when people said I was so good at playing insane because I never thought she was insane. She was just incredibly honest, which, I guess, made her seem crazy."

Along with her Academy Award, Jolie earned her second Screen Actors Guild Award.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Regardless of the actual plot of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this movie will always be known for bringing Jolie and Brad Pitt together. 

Unfortunately, it was at the expense of Jennifer Aniston, whom Pitt was married to at the time he fell in love with Jolie while filming, and even more unfortunately, it is a fairytale romance long left in the past as Jolie filed for divorce from him in September 2016. (Not to mention the bitter and drawn-out custody battle that has followed.)

Anyway, Mr. & Mrs. Smith cast Jolie as Jane Smith and Pitt as John Smith—"a bored married couple ... surprised to learn that they are both assassins hired by competing agencies to kill each other." Adam Brody, Keith David, Vince Vaughn and Kerry Washington also starred.

As an aside, back in the happier Brangelina times, Jolie and Pitt spent their honeymoon making By The Sea (2015), directed and written by Jolie but starring them both as (ironically) a married couple trying to repair their broken relationship while staying at a hotel in France.

Changeling (2008)

The same year that Jolie debuted as the voice of Tigress in Kung Fu Panda—a voiceover role she'd keep for Kung Fu Panda 2 in 2011 and Kung Fu Panda 3 in '16—she starred as Christine Collins in the Clint Eastwood-directed period drama Changeling.

The film, written by J. Michael Straczynski, was based on true events (h/t NPR):

"At least some of the facts are accurate. Christine Collins, played by Angelina Jolie, was a single mother whose young son disappeared in 1928 and was found six months later, at least the L.A. Police said it was her son. She didn't recognize him, which irritated the police captain, Jones, played by Jeffrey Donovan, to such a degree that when she protested, he threw her into a mental hospital."

Changeling was nominated for three Oscars at the 81st Academy Awards, including a best actress nod for Jolie.

Maleficent (2014)

"Since I was a little girl, Maleficent was always my favorite," Jolie said during a fan convention in August 2013 (h/t Entertainment Weekly). "I was terrified of her, but I was so drawn to her. I wanted to know more about her, know what she was like and who she was. She had this elegance and grace, and yet she was so cruel, Just wonderfully and deliciously cruel."

Jolie debuted as the Sleeping Beauty villainess when Maleficent hit theaters in May 2014. Before that, even though Kung Fu Panda 2 arrived in 2011, she hadn't physically graced the silver screen since 2010's The Tourist. 

Maleficent immediately impressed at the box office and eventually grossed $758.4 million globally. This created momentum for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which came in October 2019. Elle Fanning starred as Princess Aurora in both films, and Michelle Pfeiffer joined the cast for the sequel, but Jolie carried the franchise.