Angelina Jolie in Cancun, Mexico. (Photo by Janet R. Nepales)

LOS ANGELES – If there’s one actress who is not afraid to try anything… even in food, it would be Angelina Jolie.

We recently interviewed the award-winning actress in Cancun, Mexico for her action-packed movie, “Salt,” where she portrays Evelyn Salt, a CIA officer who is being hunted by her peers. We asked her about her unusual acting partner in this movie – an eight-legged spider.

“I did not get to keep it,” she said. “But I do like spiders, bugs, and all that. I am not squeamish. I have eaten some in my days in Cambodia so I don’t have a problem (laughing). But I didn’t eat this one (laughter).”

No doubt one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, the 35-year-old actress looked divine in the dresses that she wore in Cancun – from a gorgeous body-hugging white tube mini dress for the photo call, to a midnight blue silk Gerard Darel mini dress for the press conference, to a belted tube gray pantsuit for dinner.

In Cancun with some of her children – Maddox, Pax, Zahara and Shiloh – Angelina admitted that she partly did the Phillip Noyce-helmed movie for her daughters.

“It feels empowering to women to do it,” she disclosed of her female James Bond-like character. “It feels empowering to feel like you’re capable of saving someone or saving yourself and being physically and mentally strong. My daughters are growing up watching the Bond movies. It would have been nice for me to have a Salt when I was a little girl. So in many ways, I’m looking forward to them having this. It’s equally as good a film for boys to see.”

She added, “I have had the good fortune of being able to play many strong heroines. Those roles have been great. There are great women in history that are yet to be played – great heroic women.

There are great women stories but there are also great simple stories about motherhood and great heroic women who are mothers and not in some big action movie.”

“We met women who are in the CIA,” she continued. “We met tough, extraordinary women who look soft and sweet like someone’s mom and they are tougher than any of us in this room. They are extraordinarily strong women and there are women in the army right now and across the world fighting wars. There’s no question in me about a woman’s ability but it hasn’t been really on film in this way which was certainly an exciting challenge.”

She said that one of the reasons she did the movie was because “it is a personal human journey. It’s about a person with a certain history, has had a certain life, certain things taken away from her, certain things done to her. And it answers questions like do we make the choice to be as we’ve been raised to be? Do we become better because we take control of our own lives?”

Originally written for Tom Cruise until he backed out, the action-thriller’s lead character was changed from Edwin Salt to an Evelyn Salt. We asked Angelina if she had been looking for her Bond or Bourne.

“I had joked about it with Amy Pascal (Sony Pictures’ head honcho) who produced the film and because we talked about the Bond movies,” Angelina replied. “She called me when they were doing Daniel Craig’s Bond movie. I made a joke that I wanted to play Bond (laughing) and then about almost two years later, she called and said I think I have found it. But in fact it is very different from Bond and very different from Bourne. We took good elements from both of them and we found something very new, which is what we had to do. In the fighting styles, we wanted to focus on not just doing the girl version of the male fights but actually finding her way of fighting that was unique on its own, male or female.”

Phillip and Angelina, who worked together in “The Bone Collector” 11 years ago, talked about how it was working with each other then and now.

Phillip pointed out, “The big difference was that whereas previously, I had to finish all my sentences.

This time, we were down to a couple of words or a nod and the communication was there. Something happened in the 11 years in between, I guess. So it was really easy. It was like picking up an old friendship again.”

As for Angelina, she said, “Yes, I felt the same. I have always thought that Phillip is one of those rare directors who can do films with extraordinary content like ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence’ and has a great track record for very smart action films. So when this film came across, I had a wonderful experience. He really helped me through that it was such an easy choice. It was very easy working with him. We have a secret communication. We got a lot more kids now between us.”

“The interesting thing for me was that if I taught her anything 11 years ago, now it was the other way around,” Phillip added. “She was now in many ways the teacher. That’s what you get as a director from people who you work with. You’re always learning. That’s the wonderful thing about it.”

• • •

Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is in the movie as Peabody, a CIA agent mentored by Evelyn Salt, disclosed, “I was playing a counter intelligence officer so I had to learn about being an agent in the field and an agent in counter intelligence. I had to learn how they relate to each other, what they think of each other and whether their relationship is civil or just professional, fraught or difficult like what the Internal Affairs say.”

We asked him if he had good intuition just like his character in the movie.

“I don’t know how good my intuition is,” he said. “I’m somebody who bases a lot of my decisions on instinct, on gut feeling and I’m reacting to that. That’s an important part of being an actor when choosing your roles, scripts and directors.”

• • •

Unknown to many, Filipina-Canadian Shannon “Shay” Mitchell, who bagged one of the lead roles in ABC Family’s latest TV series, “Pretty Little Liars,” where she portrays Emily Fields, is related to international singer Lea Salonga.

A native of Toronto, Ontario, Shay was born to Precious, a Filipina, and an Irish/Scottish father, Mark Mitchell.

Lea explained to us her relation to Shay via e-mail. She said, “Shay’s grandmother, Lourdes, and my father, Feliciano, are brother and sister. Shay’s mom, Precious, happens to be my first cousin and so Shay is technically my first cousin once removed, as her mom and I are first cousins.”

The 23-year-old actress-model appeared in the hit series “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” landed a recurring role in the Disney XD series, “Aaron Stone,” and the ABC series, “Rookie Blue.”

“Pretty Little Liars,” which premiered last month, is adapted from a series of young adult novels by Sara Shepard that follows the lives of four girls – Spencer (Troian Bellisario), Hanna (Ashley Benson), Aria (Lucy Hale) and Emily (Shay) – whose clique falls apart after the disappearance of their leader, Alison. It was being described as the “Desperate Housewives” for teens.

Nia Peeples, another Filipina, was also cast as Shay’s mom on a recurring basis.

“I met Shay only once when she was a kid, during a visit of mine to Toronto where they were living at the time,” Lea disclosed. “She was always a beautiful kid. But she is gorgeous now. Her parents invited me to dinner during my first visit to Vancouver a little less than a year ago. Both Shay and her brother Sean were there too. She didn’t get her part in ‘Pretty Little Liars’ yet.”

Formerly a Manila journalist, Los Angeles-based Janet Susan R. Nepales is a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

E-mail the writer at jrnepales_624@yahoo.com for your comments or questions.