Angelina Jolie lives in two worlds: Hollywood, where she makes movies and stays in five-star hotels, and the refugee camps of Africa and Asia, where she works with the UN, bringing hope to the homeless. She feels most alive, most herself, she says, working with the people who've endured great losses yet still feel grateful for life.

At 24, Jolie won an Oscar for playing a sociopath in Girl, Interrupted but found little satifaction in stardom or the wealth that came with it. The daughter of actor John Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand, she had already seen the downside of celebrity-her parents divorced when Jolie was a toddler. And she now says the exploits of her wild-child youth were mostly an attempt to fill an emptiness she felt inside. After she finished shooting Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Jolie volunteered to be a UN ambassador and returned to Cambodia to visit refugee camps. She found a calling, and realized that her fame and money could be used to accomplish a world of good.

Now the mother of son Maddox, 3, whom she adopted in Cambodia, Angelina Jolie hopes to adopt more children. We caught up with her in Beverly Hills on a day away from the set. She talked to us about her role as the mother of Alexander the Great (played by Colin Farrell) in her new movie, Alexander, her passion for helping the dispossessed, and her longing for a partner with whom she might share it all.

RD: Did you always want children?
AJ: I always felt that I wasn't going to be a mother. I knew that to be a parent, nothing about me could be self destructive, or unsure day to day. I never thought I could be that balanced.

RD: So your son helped you find the balance?
AJ: He did calm me down, and I have a sense of peace. It made me tougher, because I changed my life overnight, to make our life better. It's the greatest thing that ever happened in my life, my son.

RD: You first saw Maddox when you went to Cambodia for the UN. Did he pick you, or did you pick him?
AJ: I think it was mutual. I had never held a baby in my life. I was one of those women-people would say, "Do you want to hold my baby?" and I was like "No..."
There were about 14 kids in the orphanage, and he was the last child I saw. They put him in my arms, and he was still asleep. Then they put him in a bath, and he stayed asleep. Then I sat with him and he opened his eyes and just stared at me for the longest time. Then he smiled.

RD: How old was he?
AJ: Three months when I met him, seven months when he came home.

RD: Was it a big adjustment?
AJ: I felt like I needed to earn being a mother, so in some ways I made it overly difficult. In our house, no one helped me. I'd shower while Maddox was in a bouncy thing, or try to brush my teeth with him attached to me. A few times, I came down in a blanket without a shirt on, because I couldn't figure out how to do it while I was holding him.

RD: Your marriage to Billy Bob Thornton was breaking up around then.
AJ: Yes, it was a difficult time for my marriage, but it was the happiest time in my life as a woman.

RD: I read that Billy Bob said about you, "I was afraid of her. She was too beautiful, too smart. She had too much integrity. I felt small next to her." Are men afraid of you?
AJ: I'm not very settled. The positive side of that is I'm on fire all the time, to try anything. The negative side is there isn't a lot of time for me to sit and watch a movie and hold hands. I tend to not be inside my relationships. I tend to be more focused on the world. It takes a certain kind of man to love those things.

RD: Does a child need a father?
AJ: I have men in my life. I have a brother. So Maddox will have male teachers. I was raised without a father.

RD: But you knew who your father was. You saw him sometimes.
AJ: Yeah, but I don't necessarily think that's better. I didn't have a good relationship with my father. Growning up, I saw my mother very stressed, often, and crying a lot. I didn't want that for my son. I believe the only people that should be around a child and raising a child are people who absolutely, 100 percent love that child.

RD: Your father said recently that he wants to reconcile and repair the damage he's done. Are you interested?
AJ: No, no. I think it's not something you tell the press; I think it's something you do in your private life. Fortunately, I got to a place in my life where I realized that, no matter what he said, I was a good person, and a good friend, and I am a good person, and I am a good mother. And because I'm an adoptive mother, I don't see blood as family. I see time and love-you earn it. You can't just call yourself a father.
I don't hate my father. I don't blame him for divorcing my mother, or having affairs. He went off path. I don't respect the way he treated my family as I was growing up. But we survived, and we're a good family. I just don't want to dedicate one more tear, or watch my mother cry one more time.

RD: Your son has gone from being an orphan in a poor village to the adored son of a movie star. You know what the challenges are of being a movie star's child. How are you going to deal with that?
AJ: He will occassionally be a part of Hollywood, and visit me on the set. But he will know what the real world is, and how much his mother cares about that. He travels with me on all my UN trips. He's already got two passports-his first one's full.

RD: Do you want to adopt again?
AJ: I have a dream of having children from around the world and letting them grow up together. I'm going to see how I handle two or three, because I'm a single mother, and it's not easy. I'd love to have eight, but I don't know if I could.

RD: Tell us about your work in the refugee camps, and your work with the UN.
AJ: It wasn't intentional. I went to Cambodia for Tomb Raider, and it dawned on me how much I didn't know, that there was a country where I couldn't walk in certain areas because it was riddled with land mines. Then I learned that my own country hadn't signed a treaty to ban land mines. I traveled more and began reading. I read about the UNHCR-United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. You realize there were refugees since the dawn of time. Nearly 20 million people are under the care of the UNHCR. I thought, how is that possible?

RD: You've started foundations...
AJ: I have the Maddox Relief Project, which deals with Cambodia and my Jolie Foundation, which helps children in orphanages. Then there's an animal orphanage in Namibia I work with.

RD: Do you work in places in the United States that have needs?
AJ: I 'm part Native American-Iroquois Indian on my mother's side, I have an organization called the All Tribes Foundation that's been trying to do a lot with Pine Ridge reservation, working through the elders. And I sponsor a poster contest every year in grade schools. Students draw pictures for Refugees Day in Washington. To get thousands of children thinking about that issue is great. If there's a kid in school that's from another country, instead of making fun, maybe they'll be more open to where he came from, or what he fought through.

RD: Do you get puzzled stares in Hollywood for your involvement in this work?
AJ: I'll get, " What are you reading?" I'll say, "Oh, something about Burma." And they'll say something like." That's great. Are you going on vacation?" There are a lot of good people, too, and I'd like to find a way they could help. I had a fund-raiser at my house for [banning] land mines a few years ago. There were 40 people and great speakers. I think the money raised by all those people, who had quite a lot of money, was maybe twice what I paid to put the event together. So if the party was $2,000, it raised $4,000. I know the money I have have. I know what those people have. I was kind of disheartened that there was not as much generosity. So I haven't had another fund-raiser. I'd rather just give it from my own pocket.

RD: Does being a celebrity give you a platform?
AJ: It allows me to do certain things. If I do a movie like Tomb Raider, with a big audience, it probably helps me. If I decide to go visit a school in the middle of Kenya, or Russia, the kids will be excited. That's better than having an Oscar.
I went through a depression when I was first famous, because what was I famous for? I didn't do anything great. And I didn't discover anything wonderful.
When I'm in a refugee camp, my spirit feels better there than anywhere else in the world, because I am surrounded by such truth, and family. I feel so connected to just simply being a human being. In these countries, they don't know who I am. I am useful as a woman who's willing to spend a day in the dirt. Maybe it was important for me to know that.

RD: Tell us about your new movie, Alexander. What drew you to the character you play?
AJ: She's a very interesting mother. She won't allow Alexander to grow up with any fear. She wants him to be extremely hard and brutal; she encourages violence.It was at a time in history when, if he wasn't strong in battle, he could get killed. Today, we can raise our sons to do what they love, even if they're not great at it. She had to raise a son for greatness, because that was how he was going to survive.

RD: You had a pretty rough youth.
AJ: Like everybody, I went through a teen stage, mine probably in some ways worse than others.

RD: You once had an interest in cutting yourself, of drawing your own blood.
AJ: I think it's hard for average people to understand things like that. I forever wanted to feel more alive. I did turn to the cutting, and the blood, because then your heart's pumping, and you're bleeding. You're alive.

RD: Was there a time when you didn't want to live?
AJ: Absolutely. I felt very empty inside. I felt like nothing mattered to me. I still have a long way to go in figuring out who I am, but I know I can be of use to others. I can help give a voice to people who aren't as able to speak for themselves. I can be a mom-and I know what my son's life would be like if I didn't make that choice. I feel useful in my life.

RD: Did the refugee camps change your perspective?
AJ: Oh, God, yeah. I really had no idea of the imbalance of the world, and how fortunate I was. My neighbors in Cambodia are land mine victims, and they never complain about anything. They play music; they smile; they raise their kids. They all work together. You put them next to somebody who's stuck on the freeway on his way to his big office, and it puts the world in a totally different perspective.

RD: Is there anything you haven't done that you'd like to do?
AJ: I'm sure I will live a life of great adventure. I will help where I can. The one thing I am not sure of is if I will do it alone. I would like to believe that I'm going to share my life with somebody, one day. There's something bittersweet when you wake up in the middle of the night, or something amazing happens- your son walks for the first time-and you don't have that other person who's going to remember that forever with you. That's kind of the one sadness. But if I only get one great love in my life, him being my son, I'll take him.

RD: And if you get another love, what will he be like?
AJ: The kind of man I could be with one day would have to be an amazing father, compassionate, strong, independent individual. I want somebody who demands I be better than what I am today. I don't have that with anyone in my life except my son. My son somehow thinks I can do everything.