Angelina Jolie at 14: Rebellion, Razor Edges, and the Making of a Hollywood Enigma

Long before Angelina Jolie became an Oscar-winning actress, humanitarian icon, and mother of six, she was a fiercely independent teenager cloaked in black, wielding a knife collection, and harboring an unusual dream—to become a funeral director. At just 14, Jolie was not merely pushing boundaries; she was actively dismantling them.

Born into Hollywood royalty—daughter of film star Jon Voight and artist Marcheline Bertrand—Jolie grew up surrounded by the spotlight but rejected its glitz. Instead, she embraced a punk-inspired rebellion, adopting a style defined by thrift store finds, cigarette burns on her clothes, and cemetery photo shoots with friends. “Anti-Beverly Hills,” a former schoolmate recalls, capturing Jolie’s deliberate opposition to the polished, privileged image of her affluent peers.

“I wanted to find a full voice and push open the walls,” Jolie later reflected. That year, she took a bold step, moving in with her boyfriend at her mother’s suggestion. But in true defiant fashion, she flushed the birth control pills her mother provided down the toilet—determined to follow her own path.

Her emotional intensity surfaced in darker ways as well. Jolie has openly discussed her struggles with self-harm, saying, “Whenever I felt trapped, I’d cut myself.” What some called “knife play” was for Jolie a painful coping mechanism, a means to regain control in a chaotic world.

Amidst this turmoil, a profound fascination with mortality emerged. The death of her grandfather sparked an interest that led her, at 14, to enroll in a home embalming course. “I didn’t just want to prepare bodies—I wanted to help families celebrate life,” she explained on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in December 2024. This unconventional ambition foreshadowed her later humanitarian focus on grief, loss, and care.

Despite her dark edges, friends remember Jolie’s generosity—sharing money, aiding the homeless, and extending kindness even while navigating her own stormy emotions. She partied, experimented with substances, and roamed city buses late at night, yet also penned raw letters revealing frustration with family expectations and tender romantic dreams. “I’d rather lay naked in a pit full of red ants than visit my relatives,” she once wrote, just pages before gushing over a boy dubbed “Mr. Perfect.”

Jolie’s teenage rebellion was not a mere phase but a crucible that forged the woman she would become. Her early encounters with pain, power, and transformation resonate through iconic roles in Girl, Interrupted, Gia, and Maleficent—films that explore the complexities she intimately knew.

At 14, Angelina Jolie wasn’t chasing stardom. She was grappling with life’s raw truths—and in doing so, laid the groundwork for one of the most compelling public lives of our time.