Jolie on Motherhood and Mental Health

Oct. 17, 2003 -- She has been called a "Devil Doll" and a "Wild Woman." It's no wonder that movie star Angelina Jolie is as famous for her life off screen. She has admitted to cutting herself with knives, having a childhood obsession with death, and her two-year marriage to actor Billy Bob Thornton only added to Jolie's reputation as an outrageous eccentric.

Watch the full interview on 20/20, Friday at 10 p.m.

Jolie, 28, admits she had a self-destructive side, but isn't quite sure where it came from.

"I felt so off balance all the time," Jolie said. "I remember one of the most upsetting times in my life was after I had attained success, financial stability and I was in love, and I thought, 'I have everything that they say you should have to be happy and I'm not happy.' "

But Jolie has gone through some major life changes in the past few years. The most significant was her decision to adopt Maddox, a Cambodian orphan she affectionately calls Madness. Then she moved to England, where she plans to raise him.

A Glimpse of Dangers Facing World’s Children

It seems motherhood has tempered Jolie's wild side. "I took charge of our life when he came home," she said, speaking of Maddox. "And I decided to make big choices and live even bolder and do things right away because it was our life suddenly and so I was inspired to travel the world all the time, because I want him to have this experience or that experience."

Jolie and Maddox often fly to Cambodia, she says, to maintain a connection with his heritage. The actress bought land there and is building a home on stilts in the jungle.

But property in Cambodia, a country that's still emerging from the devastation of the Khmer Rouge's killing fields, comes with serious perils — notably, land mines. Jolie said nearly 50 unexploded ordnances were uncovered on her land.

"Some of them are very small and plastic and some of them are big rockets and it does make me a bit nervous," she said.

Jolie, who is traveling around the globe as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, is aware of the potential dangers posed to herself and her son.

"I'd hate myself and probably not be able to live with myself if Maddox stepped on one of them and died, but … I feel like it's part of my son's life and part of our life together is to confront that part of his country, good and bad, and live there."

No Time for a Man — for Now

Jolie's new life does not include a man. With her divorce finalized, everyone seems to want to know: Who's next?

"I'm rumored to be dating everybody," the Oscar winner says. "But, no, I'm not at the moment."

In fact, she says she hasn't had sex in a year.

It doesn't seem to be a particularly pressing issue in her life. "I just can do without it for now. But I'm sure sooner or later, I'm starting to really want it and miss it again," she said.

And she's not necessarily looking for a serious relationship to go along with sex. "I was in serious relationships for so long, and I never really had just lovers," she said.

In the meantime, she has her hands full. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life was one of last summer's hit films. It was the latest in a diverse career of contrasting parts. In the coming year, Jolie will star in five movies.

Her newest film, Beyond Borders, touches on subjects that she's confronting with Maddox. It is the story of a socialite mother who devotes her life to working with refugees. She falls in love with a fellow relief worker, played by Clive Owen, and follows him to Africa and Asia.

When Jolie read the script four years ago, she says, it changed her life.

"Something in me really wanted to understand what the film was about, these people in the world, all these displaced people and war and famine and refugees." She decided to get involved with U.N. efforts around the world. After traveling with U.N. workers for about a year, she said, they asked her to be a goodwill ambassador.

Confronting World’s Suffering Through U.N. Work

Over the last three years, Jolie has traveled extensively as a goodwill ambassador. She pays her own way and lives in the same conditions as the U.N. workers. In Tanzania, she helped build a shelter in a refugee camp.

But it is difficult to confront the suffering. She worked with children who fled from their home in Congo after their parents were killed in the civil war there. And in Ecuador, she met a father who had lost his three children in another civil war.

She has donated more than $3 million to the U.N.'s refugee program. Another $10 million went to a wildlife program in Cambodia. Worth magazine recently included her on a list of the 25 most influential philanthropists in the world. She says she divides her income into three parts — almost one-third goes to charity.

"It makes me so happy to be able to do it," she said. "It's an easy thing to do. I make a stupid amount of money to do what I love for a living."

‘They’re Just Like My Son’

She visits some of the world's most dangerous war-torn nations, and she's becoming increasingly aware of the potential dangers she and her son could face. She recently returned from a particularly risky trip to the border region of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, where officials told her she could not bring her son because of potential kidnapping threats. "The thought that somebody would kill my son just because I was trying to do something good or help them was just stunning to me."

Jolie realizes she can't save the world, but she says her son's origins have made her more sensitive to the millions of suffering children around the world. "Maybe because my son's adopted, I see him as those children. They're just like my son. And he's from one of those countries," she said.

And Jolie says she's interested in adopting more children — "a small football team," she said, laughing. "I think at the end of the day as many as I can handle."

As a girl, Jolie has said, she felt that she would die young. "It is odd but I don't know if it's that rare," she said, "I learned a lot about my being a self-destructive person in my life. I never felt satisfied. I never felt calm. I still have that problem. I don't sit down well. But I think that's something that comes with finding responsibility, finding some use, finding some sense of purpose."

With Maddox in her life, Jolie now says she thinks her life will be long and fulfilling and says she would never engage in the self-destructive behavior of her past.

"I've made a promise to this child," she said. "I accepted more before Maddox. Now I accept nothing less than everything that's possible, because I want the world for him."