14 DAY TRIAL // Angelina Jolie won’t be doing any more press for “Unbroken” for a while and she won’t be making any more public appearances either because she just found out last night that she’s got Chickenpox.
Confirmation of it comes via a video message posted to YouTube by Universal Pictures, which is distributing “Unbroken,” her latest directorial effort. You will find it embedded below.
Jolie is sidelined for the next few days
What this means, as Angelina explains in the video, is that she won’t be leaving home for the next few days, while she receives treatment for the Chickenpox. This means no TV appearances, no press meetings, no sit-downs with magazine reports and most definitely no red carpet appearances at premieres.
The actress / director reveals that she just found this out herself and she’s heartbroken over it, because the film is a project close to her heart, to which she wanted to bring as much attention as possible by doing press.
In recent weeks, Angelina has been appearing on a variety of talk shows, from Letterman to Jon Stewart, has been doing print interviews with the biggest trade publications out there, including THR and Entertainment Weekly, and has been at most big premieres, walking the red carpet with the cast.
She seems genuinely distressed about this, and she makes sure she tells fans and the cast she feels like she’s letting down that she will be keeping her fingers crossed for this to be a success even without her participation.
Let the conspiracy theories begin
As we speak, there’s one conspiracy theory that’s starting to get traction online: “Unbroken,” despite early awards buzz, has been snubbed repeatedly so far, both at the upcoming SAGs and most importantly the Golden Globes.
Angelina didn’t get nods for her directing and the film didn’t make the shortlist for Best Film. Moreover, critics are torn in their reviews of the finished product: some say it’s a decent effort, but others fight back saying that it has the promise of a decent effort without ever delivering on it.
Angelina Jolie has had a very rough December, to say the least. As if the snubs and the so-so reviews weren’t bad enough, a few days ago it was revealed that Sony co-chairwoman Amy Pascal and longtime Sony associate producer Scott Rudin, with whom Jolie herself should have worked on “Unbroken” and her upcoming “Cleopatra,” hate her and consider her, in Rudin’s words, a “minimally talented spoiled brat” and “a camp event and a celebrity and that’s all.”
To the outside world, Angelina has always come across as the ultimate professional, a good actress who’s looking to branch out into directing and make good movies, and who would go the extra mile to bring attention to whatever project she’s working on, no matter in which capacity she’s involved.
Clearly, to Sony’s execs, she’s a tantrum-throwing, petulant child who will unleash chaos if something doesn’t go her way, as Pascal and Rudin commented in an email exchange made public thanks to the Sony hack of last month, for which a group Guardians Of Peace have taken responsibility.
So the theory that’s now making the rounds right now is that, even though you can clearly see in the video the marks of Chickenpox, Angelina has decided that it’s getting too hot in the kitchen for her taste – so she’s stepping out for a while.
Do you think that’s a possibility?
