President, Interrupted: Angelina Jolie sounds like she’s pondering a 2020 run

Actress. Humanitarian. Mother of six. Billy Bob Thornton’s ex. Now, Angelina Jolie is dropping hints about adding another title to her resume: president.

The Hollywood A-lister and human rights advocate told BBC’s Today Programme that though she might have laughed at running for president 20 years ago, duty calls and she would now be ready to go where she was needed.

“I honestly will do whatever I think can really make change,” Jolie said. “Right now, I am able to work with a U.N. agency that is the most in-the-field of all the U.N. agencies to do a lot of work directly with the people in need.”

After years of service as a Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie was appointed the special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2012 to support international women’s and refugee rights. She said her work in advocacy has given her necessary political experience for a role in the Oval Office but that she hasn’t decided whether to run.

"I'm also able to work with governments, and I'm also able to work with militaries, and so I sit in a very interesting place of being able to get a lot done without a title and without it being about myself or my policies,” Jolie also told BBC. “So, for now, I’ll stay quiet.”

In 2003 Jolie started the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, named for her son Maddox, who she adopted from Cambodia in 2002. The non-profit has so far donated $1 million to the now-discontinued Global Action for Children, and another $1 million to Doctors Without Borders to help families in extreme poverty affected by HIV/AIDS.

Jolie’s also an ambassador of SOS Children’s Villages, a family-oriented organization which works to prevent child labor and child trafficking, along with critically acclaimed human rights heroes like Desmond Tutu, of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and the Dalai Lama.

Jolie didn’t object to being added to the list of Democrats running in 2020. In fact, she said, “thank you.” She did, however, worry, at least a bit, about how her past would jive with a campaign.

I don't know if I'm fit for politics,” she told BBC. “But then I've also joked that I don't know if I have a skeleton left in my closet.”

Cover image: Angelina Jolie has spoken out against sexual violence in global war zones during a Government film event in London. (Press Association via AP Images)