The tea is hot as Vanity Fair releases the transcript of contributing editor Evgenia Perez’s interview with Angelina Jolie about the controversial audition process for her film First They Killed My Father.
Since Vanity Fair released the story, their cover feature for their September issue, Angelina and her camp have received backlash for subjecting children to a questionable and manipulative situation in order to assess their emotional reaction. The story reads as follows:
“To cast the children in the film, Jolie looked at orphanages, circuses, and slum schools, specifically seeking children who had experienced hardship. In order to find their lead, to play young Loung Ung, the casting directors set up a game, rather disturbing in its realism: they put money on the table and asked the child to think of something she needed the money for, and then to snatch it away. The director would pretend to catch the child, and the child would have to come up with a lie. ‘Srey Moch [the girl ultimately chosen for the part] was the only child that stared at the money for a very, very long time,’ Jolie says. ‘When she was forced to give it back, she became overwhelmed with emotion. All these different things came flooding back.’ Jolie then tears up. ‘When she was asked later what the money was for, she said her grandfather had died, and they didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral.’”
Vanity Fair refuses to publish the correction that Angelina’s camp has demanded from the publication. They are backing it up with transcripts of the recorded interview, which goes like this:
AJ: But it was very hard to find a little Loung. And so it was what they call a slum school. I don’t think that’s a very nice word for it, but a school for kids in very poor areas. And I think, I mean they didn’t know. We just went in and—you just go in and do some auditions with the kids. And it’s not really an audition with children. We had this game where it would be—and I wasn’t there and they didn’t know what they were really doing. They kind of said, “Oh, a camera’s coming up and we want to play a game with you.” And the game for that character was “We’re going to put some money on the table. Think of something that you need that money for.” Sometimes it was money, sometimes it was a cookie. [Laughter] “And then take it.” And then we would catch them. “We’re going to catch you, and we’d like you to try to lie that you didn’t have it.”
So it was very interesting seeing the kids and how they would—some were very conscious of the camera. They were actually—there are so many talented kids in this country. But Srey Moch was the only child that stared at that money for a very, very long time before she picked it up, and then bravely, brazenly lying, like was trying to hide, but then she also kind of—
EP: Wait. This is the girl, Loung.
AJ: This is the girl. And then when she was forced to give it back became very kind of like strong, emotional, she became overwhelmed with emotion that she was—and she just—all of these different things flooded out. And I don’t think she or her family would mind me saying when she was later asked what that money was for, she said her grandfather died and they didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral.
Angelina vehemently insists that she was misquoted and that such an audition practice outrages her as she said “the suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting. I would be outraged myself if this had happened.”
Angelina’s lawyer asked Vanity Fair to delete the contentious paragraph from the online version of the story and to publish the following statement, “The casting crew showed the children the camera and sound recording material, explaining to them that they were going to be asked to act out a part. . . . The children were not tricked as some have suggested. . . . All of the children auditioning were made aware of the fictional aspect of the exercise and were tended to at all times by relatives or guardians from NGOs. . . . We apologize for any misunderstanding.”
But with Vanity Fair sticking to its guns and making the interview available for public consumption, it looks like this story is far from over. What do you think? What should be Angelina’s next move?
[Vanity Fair]
Photo courtesy of The New York Post
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