Being a glamorous secret agent suits Angelina Jolie just fine. As long as it is just for the movies.
"I couldn't keep a secret life because it is just not natural to me and my family, but I think is a great sacrifice people make," the actress said in an interview with AFP ahead of the release of the spy thriller "Salt," in which she stars.
In the interview in a Washington hotel, Jolie said she would have a difficult time in real life as her character, CIA agent Evelyn Salt, who is accused of being a Russian spy and must prove her innocence while on the run.
Jolie, a 35-year-old mother of six and UN goodwill ambassador for refugees, said the public understands spy films are fiction despite the recent high-profile case involving a dozen so-called Russian sleeper agents.
"I think most people are smart enough to just recognize entertainment, because we've had spy movies and entertainment around for a very long time," said Jolie, her hair hanging loose around her shoulders and wearing a black sleeveless dress that revealed her famous tattoos on her arms.
"In reality it is entertainment even though is based on things that are possible. I think we didn't focus on the politics as much as the people and their personalities."
For her role, Jolie consulted with a real spy, Mellisa Boyle Mahle, a former US intelligence officer and an expert on the Middle East and counterterrorism.
"I tried to take it as seriously as I would any dramatic role, I try to think about her childhood, what kind of person she would be and the things that make her sad or the things that make her happy," Jolie said.
"We talked about the sacrifice of not being able to share with your family, and... what a relief it is when you retire and you can finally talk."
The action film, featuring explosions, car chases and a fast-paced plot line, was directed by Phillip Noyce and co-stars Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The movie begins wide worldwide distribution in the coming week.
Jolie also told AFP she would welcome another film with her partner and Hollywood star Brad Pitt, with whom she co-starred in the action flick "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
"Of course, of course," she said when asked about playing opposite Pitt again, but said the film would have to be carefully chosen.
"I think when you are a real couple, (there are) some things audiences prefer to see real couples do, and some things they really don't like to see real couples do, so you have to be very careful," she said.
"I'd like to do everything with him, I love to be just with him... I don't think it is a risk for us, we have fun doing everything together."
Jolie said she strives to limit her film work as she juggles her role as mother, actress and UN humanitarian envoy.
"I schedule a lot, and in advance," she said.
"I only work for a few months and then I take many months off. Before 'Salt' we got a year and half off and just traveled and I just was a mom.
"And now I'm not working for five to six months... Brad's working and I'm just being a mom and traveling."
She enjoys travel and tries to visit the locations where some of her adopted children were born.
"I want to discover everything," she said. "I will always love the countries that my children are from, they will always be special to me."
Jolie adopted her son Maddox from Cambodia, daughter Zahara from Ethiopia, and her son Pax Thien from Vietnam. Her biological daughter Shiloh was born in Namibia and her twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline were born in France.
Even though she has won an Oscar and other awards, Jolie said she still holds up Meryl Streep as today's leading actress.
"I don't know if I'll ever be as good as she is, she's so brilliant," Jolie said. "She is the one we all try to be as good as, but none of us will ever be as good as Meryl."
A thousand years of Japanese history, from ancient Buddhism to "No" theatre or manga robots, takes centre stage this summer in Monaco with a giant show devoted to the land of the rising sun.
Some 600 artworks -- giant sculptures, cypress wood masks, exquisite silk kimonos or samurai armour -- loaned from around the world, went on display this week for two months until September 12 in the tiny Riviera principality.
"We wanted to show the continuity, the coherence of the Japanese world," said curator Jean-Paul Desroches, who secured several rare pieces for the show that had never before left Japan's Imperial Museum.
An 11th-century giant wood sculpture depicting the Buddhist fire deity Fudo Myo-o greets the visitor at the entrace to the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco's main exhibition space.
Follows an 11-headed statue of a bodhisattva of compassion, loaned from Nice in nearby southern France, whose tranquil gaze rests on the six-armed bodhisattva the Nyorin Kannon, loaned from San Francisco.
Sumptuous costumes from London's Victoria and Albert Museum fill a room devoted to "No" theatre, before the visitor reaches the samurai chamber, adorned with armour, helmets and silk and horsehair braids.
Across the hall, the bright glass-fibre and resin helmets of 1970s sci-fi hero "Kamen Rider" send out a modern-day challenge to the samurai warriors.
Delicate woodblock prints by the 19th-century master Utagawa Hiroshige, depicting the Tokaidi road from Tokyo to Kyoto, hang beside boards by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, showing the same road peopled by serpent monsters.
Contemporary art also gets a look-in, with giant resin sculptures of a black panther and a white Eve by "Final Fantasy" artist Yoshitaka Amano.
But the show ends on a playful note, with a wink at manga's now-classic "Super Robots," such as Mazinger Z, known as Tranzor Z in the United States, that conquered the world from the 1970s onwards.
The creator of the hugely successful "West Wing" series will make a movie about John Edwards, the Democrat who lost his White House bid and had an extramarital affair while his wife battled cancer, Variety magazine reported Friday.
Aaron Sorkin has bought the rights to the book by Andrew Young, "The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edward's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down," the movie industry magazine said.
The book, by a former Edwards aide, tells how the candidate had an affair with campaign staff member Rielle Hunter and tried to cover it up even as he fought hard for the Democratic nomination eventually won by Barack Obama in 2008.
Only this year did Edwards, a wealthy lawyer, finally admit to having fathered a child with Hunter.
He and his wife of 32 years, Elizabeth Edwards, have separated. She has terminal breast cancer.
It will be a directorial debut for Sorkin, but he is well acquainted with political drama as the writer of both "West Wing," a long-running series set in the White House, and Cold War-era movie "Charlie Wilson's War."
The news of his movie plan immediately sparked guessing games on political blogs about the casting, with the Washington Post suggesting Tom Cruise for Edwards, who, like the actor, is known for his flashing smile.
Australian soap opera "Neighbours" -- consistently more popular in Britain than in its homeland -- has handed a new role to a UK competition winner, British broadcaster Five said Friday.
The show, which launched the careers of Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Natalie Imbruglia and Jason Donovan, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and offered female British fans the chance to appear as a character for a month.
Gabriella Darlington, 18, from Chelmsford, northeast of London, beat off competition from more than 1,600 hopefuls in Five's "Be A Star" contest.
She will guest star as Poppy Rogers, described as a "free-spirited" backpacker who makes an impression on the local bachelors.
Darlington has flown to Melbourne, where the show is recorded.
"I can't believe how lucky I am. I never expected to be shortlisted, let alone get to Australia and win," she said.
Manuscripts and drawings of Franz Kafka are to be extracted from the vaults of Swiss bank UBS, amid litigation over ownership rights of the estate, Swiss press reported Friday.
Four safes which have held manuscripts and drawings of the author for over 50 years are to be opened on Monday, according to the newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung.
UBS declined comment when contacted by AFP.
The move in Zurich follows similar action at two Tel Aviv banks this week, which were ordered by an Israeli tribunal to extract Kafka's works from their vaults.
The documents are at the heart of an ownership legal tussle between the Israeli authorities and the Hoffe sisters -- who say they had inherited the estate from their mother Esther Hoffe.
Esther Hoffe was the secretary of Max Brod, the friend of Kafka whom the author had entrusted with burning all manuscripts and works after his death.
However, Brod had ignored Kafka's wishes and instead published the works. He also bequeathed the originals to Esther Hoffe.
As Brod had migrated to Israel in 1939 when fleeing the Nazis, the state of Israel now claims that Kafka's documents are property of the state.
A trial is therefore ongoing in Israel to determine if the Hoffe sisters are the rightful heirs of the estate.
Greeted by dozens of fans, actor George Clooney starred in a real-life courtroom comedy in Italy when he appeared at the fraud trial of three people accused of co-opting his name for a fashion label.
The defence lawyer peppered Clooney with questions such as, "Is it true that you want to run for office in the United States?", "Do you love riding your Harley Davidson?" and "Did you have a relationship with a woman named Mara?", according to the ANSA news agency.
The lawyer also implied that Clooney was lying. "I know that Mr Clooney is a very good actor, but..." he said before the judge interrupted him.
The 49-year-old Hollywood heart-throb hit back with humour, telling the defendants they had done "a really good job" creating their advertisements using his image.
Wearing a dark blue suit and tie, Clooney entered the courtroom through a back way, quipping as he slowly made his way through the crowd of fans and journalists, "Don't crush my lawyers."
Many court workers left their posts to catch a glimpse of the actor, according to Italian all-news channel Sky TG24.
The star of "Up in the Air" and "Ocean's Eleven" is regularly in Italy, where he has a villa on Lake Como, north of Milan, and dates Italian actress and model Elisabetta Canalis.
Pakistan on Friday delayed the review of a ban on an Indian Bollywood comedy poking fun at Osama bin Laden, which censors said was a threat to security and offensive to Muslims.
Pakistani censors banned "Tere bin Laden" (Without you, Laden) before it was due to open at cinemas nationwide on Friday. Advertisements for the film in the Pakistani press have been accompanied by "subject to approval" notices.
The film is a spoof about a Pakistani reporter who wants to migrate to the United States and hopes his interview with a chicken farmer who is the spitting image of the world's most wanted man can get him the visa he has been denied.
Pakistani pop singer Ali Zafar plays the starring role, but the board of censors said the film could incite suicide attacks in a country already suffering Islamist militant bombings weekly if not daily.
Censors said the film ridiculed Pakistani society, was offensive to Muslims, portrays bin Laden as a "coward and ridiculous", contained vulgar language and could fan hostility among "fanatic and fundamentalist elements" in Pakistan.
Bombs and attacks blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have killed more than 3,560 people across the nuclear-armed country since government troops besieged a radical mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.
But the film's promoters appealed the ban as a violation of freedom of expression, forcing government officials to review the decision.
"I'm astonished they did this," said promoter Nadeem Mandviwala.
"There are many TV programmes in Pakistan criticising the president, prime minister and everybody else in a comic way. Our society has become tolerant."
Pakistan has a relatively free media, but authorities in May briefly shut down YouTube and Facebook over blasphemous content on the Internet. Internet links to material considered offensive are still blocked.
Government officials on Friday attended a private screening of the film to decide whether to uphold the ban or release it for public consumption, but delayed a decision -- meaning that the film will not open on Friday as planned.
"We have postponed the meeting and delayed the decision until Wednesday," culture ministry official Moeen-ul-Islam Bukhari told AFP. He attributed the delay to members of the appeals' committee failing to show up.
The "Tere bin Laden" controversy comes after a number of Gulf states banned a hard-hitting Bollywood film that claims to tell the true story behind violence in the Muslim-majority region.
In India's entertainment capital, Mumbai, the film's producer, Pooja Shetty, said earlier that they were still hoping for clearance for the film.
"I'm hopeful that they will look at it in a positive light," Shetty, the joint managing director at production company Walkwater Media, told AFP.
"I don't think it's a preachy film, neither is it making fun of terrorism. It's about a fake Osama... It's a comedy, a spoofy film."
The film was being released in India and a number of countries on Friday, including Australia, Britain, Singapore, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates.
It is expected to be released in the United States at a later date, added Shetty.
The film's subject matter and publicity about Pakistan's ban have catapulted the low-budget film into the spotlight in India and abroad.
The Times of India newspaper gave the film three stars, despite saying its production was a "shade amateur".
"'Tere Bin Laden' has both: smart script and some smart acting."
Singer Robbie Williams is rejoining British band Take That and they have been secretly recording a new album to be released in November, the British group announced Thursday.
The boy band dominated the British pop scene in the 1990s before Williams left in 1995 and went on to have a successful solo career.
The remaining members of Take That disbanded in 1996 but reformed five years ago and have since enjoyed three number one singles and two successful tours, while Williams' solo work appears to have lost impetus.
TV stations showed the first pictures of Williams and the group reunited -- and band member Mark Owen said he was delighted.
"Getting the five of us to be in a room together, although always a dream, never actually seemed like becoming a reality," Owen said.
"Now the reality of the five of us making a record together feels like a dream.
"It’s been an absolute delight spending time with Rob again."
The band are due to release a new single, "Shame", co-written by Williams and Gary Barlow, in October, before the album goes on sale in time for the lucrative Christmas period.
Boney M, the 70s disco band behind hits such as "Rasputin" and "By the Rivers of Babylon," will play in Ramallah next week as part of a Palestinian festival, organisers said on Thursday.
The band, which shot to global fame with catchy disco numbers, will perform a concert in the West Bank city on July 20 as part of the six-day music and dance festival taking place across the occupied Palestinian territory.
"This is the 12th time we have held the Palestine International Festival of Dance and Music," said Hana Awwad of the the Ramallah-based Popular Art Centre, which is organising the event.
The festival was expected to attract around 13,000 visitors, she said.
The lineup includes a concert by French-Algerian Rai singer Faudel on July 21 as well as performances by the Ballet Espanol de Murcia, Jordanian composer Tareq al-Nasser and his Rum Group, a Georgian dance theatre troupe as well as many local music and dance groups.
British-born Palestinian singer Shadia Mansour, popularly known as "the First Lady of Arabic Hip Hop," will open the festival on Sunday.
The festival will run to July 24, with events taking place in five West Bank cities as well as in the port city of Haifa in northern Israel.
The event is being held to highlight the problems faced by the Palestinians in accessing water resources in the occupied West Bank, where Israel controls shared resources.
Rights groups say the water supplied by Israel falls short of Palestinian needs, but also point out that the Palestinians have failed to set up the infrastructure and institutions needed in the water sector.
A concert to honour anti-Apartheid hero Nelson Mandela set to take place over the weekend in the Spanish capital has been postponed, a spokeswoman for the host venue said Thursday.
The concert was planned at Madrid's Las Ventas bullring on Sunday on Mandela's 92nd birthday but it will now take place in October, she said. No reason for the delay was given.
Madrid was chosen by Mandela's AIDS charity 46664 -- the number that adorned his prison uniform during his 27 years of captivity on Robben Island -- to host the annual concert in honour of the former president.
Organisers had promised that top celebrities would attend but no names were divulged.
In November a UN resolution officially declared July 18 to be International Nelson Mandela Day.
Last month legendary blues guitarist B.B. King performed a free concert in honour of South Africa's first black president in Madrid to kick off International Nelson Mandela Day celebrations in Spain.
The idea of holding an annual Mandela concert was born following the huge international success of the celebration of his 90th birthday in London in 2008.
The following year, unofficial "International Mandela Day" celebrations took place in New York, featuring performances by Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Aretha Franklin and France's singer-first lady Carla Bruni.
