‘I was very worried,” says Jolie. “I’ve never been so nervous about anything. I work very hard but I’m very casual about it, it doesn’t keep me up at night but this one did. The night before shooting I was tossing and turning and imagining everything that could possibly go wrong. I felt bad that I was even assuming that I could play this woman that I respected so much and I felt humbled to a point of being unable to move. But her faith in me really helped me so much.”

 A Mighty Heart is based on Mariane’s book of the same name, which tells the story of how she met and fell in love with Daniel Pearl and of the dark days of his kidnap whilst he was investigating a story about the shoe bomber Richard Reid in Karachi.

Excerpts from an interview with Jolie about her experience in the film:

It must be nice to be here with such a well-received film?
Yes it is. We’re so relieved. The reviews do make a difference and also we were able to send some good reviews to Danny’s parents and you think, thankfully we can tell them that it's going well.

I would imagine that Daniel’s parents and Mariane were the toughest audience for you?
Absolutely. And once we knew that they were all right really it could have been the toughest reviews in the world and that wouldn’t have been good, but still as soon as Mariane was fine then I was fine.

How did this project start? Was it a conversation between you and Brad?
I was the last one in. I knew Mariane a bit because we tried out play-dates, just as women and nothing to do with anything else. Then separately Brad had bought the rights to the book after they had met a few times and she trusted him and then I believe they got together and started to talk, it was like ‘OK, we’re going to make the movie, what do you think?’ and when it came to casting she mentioned me which was fantastic.

What was it like filming it in Pakistan and India?
I love those parts of the world and I love to travel. I much prefer that to a big fancy trailer and a Hollywood studio lot. So I was so grateful to be there and that’s what we all loved about Michael as a director and knew he would bring authenticity. And that was so important. And it was wonderful. We all lived in the house, we had no separate trailers and we never left to go to lunch or anything, in a separate builiding, we were in that house the whole time and that helped us to bond and to create the atmosphere that you see in the film.  We had one room in the house that kind of had some make up in it and some clothes changes. But if you walked out of that door you might be on film! (laughs). So it was great.

There’s a remarkable scene when you find out the dreadful news that he’s died. What were you thinking about doing that?
 There was something about that night. It was like we woke up that morning and it was the same as it was years before, when we heard the news about Danny.

Even the actors I was looking at off camera had tears in their eyes. It had nothing to do with acting, it was the thought that somebody would do that to another human being and what that must have been like for Mariane and what that moment will be like for Adam, that broke us, and it was just a really emotional night.

You’re still doing the work with the UN…
Yes, I always work with refugees and I think they are the most amazing people and it’s a privilege to spend time with them so I will always. But I have got more involved… I’m focusing more on justice and I’ve become a real student of the international criminal court.

 DHNS