WASHINGTON, D.C.—It’s difficult for people in the public eye to convince us they have changed. We grab on to the easiest images and refuse to let go. The curious case of the public’s relationship with Angelina Jolie is a good example. Jolie, who stars in the upcoming Salt, an action movie about Russian spies, is not particularly well liked. This is despite her work as a United Nations Refugee Agency goodwill ambassador and as a spokesperson for a number of social causes. The public hasn’t forgotten the Billy Bob Thornton years or the questionably close relationship with her brother James Haven or, of course, that she ran off with a married man, Brad Pitt. The supermarket tabloids, who know she is the best-selling cover girl, aid and abet that for financial reward.

The first time I met her, she was wrapped around her Pushing Tin costar Thornton and barely spoke. A year later, in 2001, during interviews for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, she was showing off the amulet of Thornton’s blood that she wore around her neck. “I was the last person to believe in love,” she said at the time. “I was really prepared to be alone, but he is my favourite person on the planet.”

Jolie did change. Within two years she had moved on to her job with the United Nations and was promoting a film about African relief workers, Beyond Borders. When asked if she was working with the UN as a way of dealing with her “flaky” image, she smiled. “I don’t know if I was flaky or if I was just not asked questions about what mattered in my soul when I did those other interviews,” she said. “I was asked about tattoos and boyfriends, and I answered those questions. I hadn’t formed opinions about certain things, so I tended not to talk about things that I didn’t know anything about. But I think that is all it was. I didn’t think I was flaky. I thought I was sharing things that mattered to me and that I think mattered to some people.”

By 2004, while doing publicity for Taking Lives, she was talking about her adopted son, Maddox, and building hospitals in Cambodia. However, there seemed to be a need to talk about something less substantial. Rumoured lovers were more interesting. As always, she answered the question. “I am not involved in any relationship,” she said. “I am not officially dating anyone, but I have lovers. No one needs to be named. We meet in hotel rooms.”

If she has changed as a person, it has been the diversity of her acting choices that has been notable. She has moved almost seamlessly from expensive action films like the two Lara Croft movies and Mr. and Mrs. Smith to smaller character roles in Changeling and A Mighty Heart. Phillip Noyce, who directed her 11 years ago in The Bone Collector and took on the same task for Salt, says in a Washington hotel room that there is no doubt in his mind that she has grown professionally.

“She evolved a tremendous amount, and all for the good. She was relatively inexperienced [in 1999] and still trying to understand the instrument that her acting ability was. This time she had made so many movies compared to the number of movies I had made. I very quickly learned that I had stuff to learn from her. The major thing was that 10 years ago she was fearless because she didn’t know any better. Ten years later, she knew everything but she was still fearless. Most people, when they get to the top, they become afraid. They become conservative in their choices because they are defending their position. Angelina was only emboldened by her experience and position to become more adventuresome.”