Angelina's Goodwill Not Celeb Tourism

Angelina Jolie may be the poster child for celebrity do-gooders, but, according to the star, there was a time when her goodwill services were less than desired.

Remember those brother-smooching, blood-vial necklace days?

Still, fresh off a trip to the Sudan, the 31-year-old thesp sat down with Newsweek to both describe her long-coming path to charitable redemption and decry recent criticism about a possible agenda behind her global efforts.

Jolie said that her path to tabloid righteousness began seven years ago, when she sought out the United Nations Human Rights Council to offer to lend a hand.

"I remember sitting up for two days straight and reading everything obsessively," she told the magazine. "I approached them. I think they thought I was a little crazy."

"I was very nervous to call the U.N. agency at the time. I was considered a rebel in Hollywood. At the time I was also a bit of the wild child. So first I went to Washington and I sat with everybody there and said, 'You know, I know you don't know me. You might have heard things about me...And I don't want to bring negative attention to your agency. If you could just help me, I'll pay my way.' "

Jolie said she then spent the next year and a half traveling to refugee camps in Africa, Pakistan and Cambodia without cameras or press to allow herself to build "this great education before I spoke at all."

Jolie credits the media-free tour with transforming her "in such an amazing way."

The mother of almost four also said that when she first entered the camps on her own—on a commercial plane with one backpack, the way she travels still—she was quite shy about both speaking to the refugees and sticking a camera in their face.

She said that she eventually came to terms with the press accompanying her.

"Let the people speak for themselves through the camera," she said. "And if I can draw you in a little because I'm familiar, then that's great. Because I know at the end you're not looking at me, you're looking at them."

As for criticism leveled against the star that celebs and politics don't, or at least shouldn't, mix, Jolie simply "can't care."

"I don't know if anybody saying that has spent the last six years of their life going to over 30 camps and really spending time with these people...But there are a lot of people that simply have an immediate gut reaction and they just don't want to combine artists with foreign policy. And hey, I understand. I get it. I know where you're coming from. And to each his own.

"If I felt that I was ever getting in the way, I wouldn't do it. Because I do care about the opinion of the aid worker, I do care about the opinion of the refugee. I care less about the opinion of the person who's never been in the field but has an opinion about celebrity."

As for her goodwill bent, Jolie says it's something she sees a natural transition to in her personal life. Case in point: moving her expanding brood to the still-rebuilding New Orleans.

"We realized it was a place we liked, we liked the people, I liked the school for the kids. They're very diverse. I liked the other parents. I feel very comfortable with them. We're happy having our children here. Brad is working on rebuilding here...There's a lot of work to be done."

Home and abroad.

Jolie, who recently returned from a solo trip to Sudan's Darfur region, said that the next stop on her perpetual global goodwill tour will be the native country of her son Maddox.

"I want to go back to Cambodia," she said. "I would like to understand and see what I can find out about what's happening inside Burma."

But first, another stop in Vietnam may be in order.

Last week, an official from Ho Chi Minh City confirmed that Jolie had begun the adoption process for a three- to four-year-old boy.