Angelina Jolie has compared The One and Only Ivan to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 45-year-old star – who voices African bush elephant Stella in the Disney movie, which she also produced – has opened up on the themes of the film, which was adapted from Katherine Applegate’s 2012 novel of the same name.
‘There’s something about the captivity of it too that I think was sadly speaking to children and helping each other through with feeling confined,’ she told Variety. ‘I think it spoke to kids and touched at a good time.’
She has been living with all six of her kids in her Los Feliz, California mansion which is a five minute drive from ex Brad Pitt’s mansion; he also spends time with the children but it is not clear how often.
The stars, who wed in 2014 and split in 2016 then became officially single in 2019, are still working out a custody agreement.
Jolie also reflected on her process when it came to breathing life into her character, who was created in incredible detail by the VFX team.
She explained: ‘You’re doing a being. What is this being? She has the weight and heaviness of being an older elephant.
‘It was thinking about the being that had been captive and had been harmed, and an elephant who was worried about the next generation – what is the soul of an elephant, that’s what it was.’
She also said that she wore an elephant onesie when doing her voice work and joked, ‘That was my method moment.’
She noted how the voice actors – also including the likes of Sam Rockwell (Ivan), Danny DeVito (Bob) and Dame Helen Mirren (Snickers) – altered their performances over time.
She added: ‘We would do our voices, we would play with the scene and we would see what was created in CG and the VFX.
‘We would redo the performance because the slowness of the breath or how long it takes to drag her feet when she’s tired.
‘Everyone would take painstaking efforts [to recreate and readjust that moment] because it mattered in this film.
‘I remember the first time I saw some of the animals, I thought, ‘There’s a soul to it’. You don’t realize how much work is put into it.’
The idea to do the movie came from one of her kids: ‘My child, Shiloh brought the book to me, she had read it and she loved it.’
The One and Only Ivan was written by Katherine Applegate; it is based on a true story.
Jolie was so moved she starred in and produced.
The Salt actress said the story taught her six kids ‘what activism can do and what sanctuaries are.’ She added, ‘There’s family and self-discovery’ in the story.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
