Last Friday, Angelina Jolie was in New York to attend meetings at the United Nations. She also gave a keynote address to committee, and her speech was all about women’s rights and the need to focus on women in warfare and conflict. Her speech was well-received, and basically, she seems perfectly at home at the UN, perfectly at home with speech-making and activism and problem-solving behind the scenes. We also know that Angelina carries several titles now: she’s a dame, she’s a professor, she’s a Special Envoy for the UNHCR, and she’s arguably a saint too. But would Angelina ever want the title of Senator Jolie or Congresswoman Jolie or President Jolie? Why not? She spoke to People Magazine about all of that more:

Whether she would ever run for office: “Never say never. [But ] right now I am looking to others for leadership.”

Her work with women in conflict: “I try to speak for what I believe in,” Jolie says of her causes. Currently, one of those causes is that the laws that treat women around the world like “second class citizens” need to change. “If you look across the world, there are far too many women and girls who are not only not seeing progress, their rights are slipping away from them,” Jolie says. But Jolie adds that the laws don’t just need to change. “We also have to enforce them. So one of the things we are putting forward now is a proposal for a permanent international body to investigate war crimes, including mass rape and other sexual and gender-based violence.”

Her PSVI initiative, seven years later: “There is now a lot more awareness and discussion and many more countries have made commitments. For example, 156 countries have pledged not to include amnesties for rape when they are negotiating peace agreements. It is hard to believe, but peace treaties routinely grant immunity to people who’ve carried out the most disgusting violent crimes against civilians. So we have to make sure all those countries live up to that commitment.”

She’s made lifelong friends along the way: “The second UN mission I went on, to Cambodia, I met two women from England and France, Katie and Mimi, who were working with UNHCR. Loung was there as well, and we did a UN and HALO mission. We have all been friends ever since, for coming up on twenty years now. I feel very blessed in my work to have the opportunity to meet so many extraordinary people who spend their lives dedicated to others.”

[From People]

I kind of love that she talked about the friends she’s made along the way with her UNHCR. She gave an interview once – I think with CNN? – where she made an aside about how she doesn’t have many friends. The haters threw a party about that, like it wasn’t just some random aside she made without thinking. She has friends, they just aren’t performative Instagram-friendships. They’re built on substantive work and shared humanitarian goals. As for running for office…I mean, I doubt it. I don’t think she would run for office here in America. But in Britain? Why not.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.