How Angelina Jolie’s View on Beauty Has Evolved at 50

From a rebellious spirit to a timeless elegance, we’ve seen Angelina Jolie evolve on screen and off. She’s always been striking, but as she turns 50, there’s a new kind of confidence that surrounds her. Once known for her unpredictability and edge, the star is now the picture of grace. Over the years, she’s opened up about growing older, feeling comfortable in her skin and what beauty means beyond the surface.

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A Humble Start

Long before being named one of the world’s most beautiful women, Jolie admitted she didn’t see herself that way. In an early interview with Girlfriends magazine in 1997, the star said, “I never felt beautiful. I remember at the beginning of my career, people were saying things like that and I thought it was so strange. I just never saw myself that way.”

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The Reluctant Sex Symbol

When making Tomb Raider, Jolie had to navigate the body expectations attached to her role. “I’ll make it real simple, I’m a 36-C. In the game, she’s a double-D. In the movie, she’s a D. We split the difference… [Lara] is much more athletic, and she has smaller breasts, but she’s still Lara Croft, so there.”

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Beauty From the Inside Out

In a 2005 interview with CNN International, Jolie said, “It may sound cliché, but when you feel beautiful and strong on the inside, it shows on the outside.”

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A Simple Wellness Routine

Jolie’s approach to fitness is refreshingly relatable. In a 2010 Vogue India interview, she said, “I don’t do a lot of fitness. I do like to feel healthy and have energy, but I’m not a gym person. I like to walk or play with my kids. I’ll do yoga sometimes, but I’m not consistent.”

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Her Best Beauty Advice

On 60 Minutes in 2012, Jolie shared how she encourages her daughters to value intellect and character over looks: “I don’t think about beauty. I wake up and I want to be a smarter person, that’s my focus … I’m encouraging certainly my girls that if they can make their inside and who they are really, really stunning then everything falls together.”

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Empowering Health Choices

In her 2013 New York Times op-ed “My Medical Choice,” Jolie revealed her preventive double mastectomy decision after discovering she carried the BRCA1 gene. “I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity,” she wrote, encouraging women everywhere to take control of their health.

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Her Kind of Sexy

In a 2019 InStyle interview, Jolie explained her deeper definition of beauty: “Beauty—everybody has a different opinion about what that is. Intellect is the most beautiful. When you see somebody who has a mind on fire, that’s sexy. A person who is empathetic and thoughtful and passionate, there’s nothing more attractive than that. There’s nothing you could wear or put on your face to cover up if your mind is blank and your heart is dark.”

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Aging Gracefully

As she’s gotten older, the star has often spoken out about embracing aging, including in a PEOPLE interview in 2021: “Aging is natural and beautiful and the changes you see are symbols of your life’s journey.”