Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2010

Very few people are able to reinvent themselves as many times as Angelina Jolie. The 35-year-old actress has gone from a tattooed rebel famously sporting a vial of then-husband Billy Bob Thornton’s blood to a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, mother of six and one of the most effortlessly elegant women in Hollywood. Jolie recently stopped by Tokyo to promote her new movie Salt, which premiered in Japanese theaters on July 30. But that doesn’t mean her trip was all business. “I spent the morning at Kiddyland with my children,” she tells reporters. “They’re obsessed with Ponyo.”

In her new film, Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who goes on the run after a Russian defector fingers her as a KGB spy on a mission to start a nuclear war. The script was originally written with Tom Cruise in mind—as protagonist Edwin Salt—but the actor turned it down, reportedly over concerns that the role was too similar to his Mission: Impossible character. Producers then began toying with the idea of reworking the role for a female lead. Jolie, whose strong action background includes hits like Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Lara Croft, was an obvious choice.

For Jolie, taking on the character of a superspy provided a much-needed jolt of adrenaline. “I had just done Changeling, which was very emotional,” she explains, referring to the 2008 Clint Eastwood drama. “And then I had twins… I was feeling very, very soft and I felt that I had to do something to balance that.” But even on set, Jolie insists that she’s always a mother first. “Brad and I take turns working, so he was home with the kids. He’s a wonderful father and would bring them to the set sometimes after school. They played in the rigs and with the fake blood, and found mommy very strange in her different hair,” she says with a smile. “Brad is what makes it possible.”

Jolie also took advantage of one of her character’s disguises—a male NATO officer—to play a small joke on her eldest son. “I had someone call Maddox over and say there’s an officer who wants to meet him,” she says. “I think he’d been playing his video games, so he was kind of bored, shaking my hand and just looking down. And I said, ‘Honey, it’s mommy.’ So he sat with me and watched as they pulled off the face and the ears and the hands…”

Jolie is famous worldwide as much for her iconic face as for her acting, so it’s no surprise when a reporter asks about her beauty regimen. “Well, my lips I was born with,” she says with a rather bemused laugh. “But when you’re happy with what you do in your life and surrounded by support, I really think that translates into beauty.”