Angelina Jolie talks refugees on Anderson Cooper 360

Last night, Anderson Cooper aired an exclusive interview with Angelina Jolie on his CNN show Anderson Cooper 360. Luckily for people who weren’t able to see it yesterday, I was able to find the segment on YouTube. I’ve often found CNN to be pretty generous with its news feeds so hopefully this won’t be removed from YouTube at any point in the near future.

Anderson starts off by saying how none of the segment went as planned – explaining that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also supposed to be a part of the discussion but that she had fallen and broken her elbow and was unable to attend. He also added that he was meant to interview Angelina in person but that horrible weather had diverted his flight straight back home (his re-telling of the flight was pretty humorous!).

Luckily, they were able to set up a satellite feed and they did the interview that way so they could talk about the more than 42 million refugees around the world. He kicked things off by asking if there’s one particular refugee crisis that is more alarming to her than the rest and Angelina said that Pakistan is at the top right now, mostly because although it’s so recent the numbers have been climbing so rapidly – at a pace of 100,000 displaced people per day, pushing past two million in total.

Anderson then asked Angelina if her kids worry and how she explains to them all that she’s doing when she goes to these regions. I loved her answer; she said that she just tells them that there are families all around the world that aren’t as fortunate as they are, children that aren’t as lucky and that it’s important to go to these places and understand what’s going on so that they can be helped.

He also pointed out that there’s a danger of getting to a point where you keep hearing the same story over and over, and how to keep in mind that each person is an individual (I think he was sort of getting at how to avoid becoming jaded and still being able to listen to each person’s story as their own). Anderson asked Angelina if anyone ever really sticks out in her memory and she told the story of a 15-year-old boy who had lost his entire family and had been shot in the back, leaving him paralyzed. She pointed out that we all complain of so many little things on a daily basis and this boy who had lost everything was so full of life and good spirit. She broke down momentarily saying that he had passed away and that she often wondered what he could have been under better circumstances.

I don’t know how she holds it together when she’s there.

I actually had to pause the video to have an emotional moment myself when Angelina spoke of an 8-year-old girl in Tanzania who fled with her little baby brother after seeing the rest of her family killed right in front of her; she carried him and ran through the jungle, eating fruit along the way and fled for two weeks before finally arriving at a refugee camp. A year later she saw the little girl again and she was like a tiny woman despite her age, taking care of her brother at the camp and just showing remarkable, gracious resilience.

Speaking to Anderson of her own family, she said that she hopes to provide a good education for her own children, and not just when it comes to the basics of math and writing; she wants her children to go out into the world and meet the same people, the same children that she does so that they too can learn about the world and how other people live, to carry on trying to help others. The Jolie-Pitt kids are going to grow up to be the most compassionate kids in the world.

And yes, Anderson asked about her children too. He mentioned there are a lot of birthdays coming up and how do they handle that at home. Angelina laughed – she always seems so pleased to discuss her kids as long as she’s able to discuss the big issues first – and said they have so many kids right now that it’s just a big year-long birthday and they rotate it. She also said the older kids now help to plan the parties for the younger ones, which sounds cute!

In closing, Anderson asked if Brad and Angelina have plans for more kids and without hesitation she said yes, they love kids and both want a large family so they never say no.

The interview was fantastic, even if they weren’t able to sit in the same room together this time. Anderson Cooper is amazing, he’s always been my favorite on CNN and he does his job exceptionally well.

Enjoy!