Angelina Jolie, 2013

“Nothing would mean anything if I didn’t have a life of use to others.”

Angelina Jolie recalled this advice from her mother while accepting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy’s 2013 Governors Awards. She thanked the family that had supported her and spoke about encountering people whose talent and potential had been constrained by war, displacement, and lack of opportunity. The honor recognized humanitarian work alongside film, allowing Jolie to ask what artistic success meant when placed beside lives shaped by dangers she had not faced.

Usefulness gives recognition an external measure. Awards, attention, and income describe how a career has been received, but not automatically what it contributes. An artist may be useful by telling a neglected story, employing people fairly, lending visibility to a cause, sharing resources, or creating work that gives audiences language for an experience. The forms differ, and usefulness need not be solemn; laughter, beauty, and escape can serve human needs too.

Service language can become paternalistic when famous people speak for communities rather than listening to them. Good intentions do not replace expertise, consent, or long-term partnership. A public figure’s involvement may attract resources, but it can also eclipse local leaders and simplify complex conflicts into a personal redemption narrative. The quote should direct attention outward without assuming that visibility confers authority over every problem.

Ask one practical question of a project: who becomes more capable because this exists? The answer might involve an audience, a colleague, or a community, but it should be specific enough to test. Consult people closest to the need and credit their knowledge. Jolie’s sentence does not diminish ambition; it gives ambition a horizon beyond accumulation. A life of use is built through repeated relationships and accountable choices, not a single symbolic gesture performed when a spotlight is brightest. Usefulness can also be reciprocal. The person offering support may receive knowledge, connection, and a more accurate understanding of the world, but that benefit should not become the purpose imposed on others. Long-term partnership creates room for correction when an intervention is ineffective or unwanted. Before acting, ask what success would look like to the people involved and who will remain after media attention ends. Service becomes durable when it transfers capacity, respects leadership, and does not require the helper to remain the central character. A useful life can therefore be ambitious and collaborative at once, provided the people served retain voice over what usefulness means. Its measure is the strengthened agency left with others after the helper departs.