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HAPPIER TIMES Voight's estrangement from daughter Angelina has never been fully explained

Outside of Iraq and the war on terror do you think the other criticisms you hear about Bush are fair?
Like what?

This isn't a movie to expose people who are running for political office; this is a true event, an injustice that has to be righted. I don't know what the ramifications will beWell you have the handling of Katrina, there's the Valerie Plame leak ...
There are mistakes made in politics right and left. When something happens and we don't respond, we've got to fix it. When you've got a government office that is supposed to be available in extreme disasters and they don't come up with the goods, they are not responsive and they're incompetently run, yes, we have to correct that. And then we have to go beyond that. We've got to be on our toes all the time. And in those ways, people can come up to the bat and fill in and do amazing things and others fall to the wayside are revealed to be unable to handle the crises. But this wholesale criticism of this man, just laying everything at his feet, is inappropriate. I went down to see the guys at Walter Reed, and I was interested in checking the conditions to see that these guys were being taken care of—and they were. You can be very proud of the people at Walter Reed and all the people who are surrounding the troops; This is some real rough stuff these kids are going through, there are some really difficult things to looks at. You know, serious injuries. So my eyes were open going down there.

What else did you take away from the experience?
Someone said the president has been here and Dick Cheney comes down here regularly—I think he said every six weeks he comes and sees every person. Well, that's pretty terrific. So when you look at Dick's face at different times you can see what he's carrying, his understanding, his compassion. The stuff like that that you read is real. I mean these guys are concerned people. Somebody said to me—a wounded soldier who was against Cheney and Bush—and he said, "Cheney's a really nice guy," like he was so surprised to see that the guy was a good guy. You understand?

I imagine he's less gruff with wounded troops than reporters.
It all gets distorted. Rumsfeld was maligned and villainized; he's a hardworking guy, doing the best he can. He's got such a huge responsibility, and if he makes the slightest error, people's lives are at stake. So, you don't think he carries a big weight? He does. Now they've gotten rid of Rumsfeld. Well okay, maybe he didn't have the answer, maybe there was a fresh answer required. But you've got to respect the guys who are out there, working hard as public servants. These guys are good guys. People don't like the war because we don't seem to be winning it. And these people think that if we just walk away everything will be fine, but that's not the case.

Even if you disapprove of the war, it seems pretty clear that simply pulling the troops out might not be the best option.
More than that, the war does not end. When we look around and see the evidence of what is being done and the preparations that are being made to disrupt our country and to destroy it. This growing cancer of fanaticism, it's like 1938—it's very, very similar.

FAMILY AFFAIR Father and daughter outside the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2001

Islamic fundamentalism?
Whatever you call it, the things that are being said are very similar. It's a matter of whether we recognize that or go into a cocoon and make our own little drama. Do you know what I'm saying? We're debating things instead of recognizing that the real fundamental aspect is that we're at war with a very vicious, very clever enemy.

For lack of a better segue, your new film, September Dawn, also deals with religious fundamentalism. Is there a common thread here with the Mormons of 1857?
I have stated that the movie is a true documented event of a group of fanatic religious believers who received one man's evil permission to massacre another religion—that's the way I summed it up for myself. And it's interesting that we have the same problem facing us now with the Islamic fanatics calling for the destruction of America and all of democracy. It seems there's always a face of evil putting on a mask of God-like beliefs to destroy true believers of innocence and good.

The film's depiction of the massacre is pretty damning to Brigham Young's reputation. How accurate is it from a historical perspective?
Everything that Brigham Young says in our piece he actually said. When you listen to it, you say "Holy God," but this is the real thing.

I haven't been in touch with the kids and I would love to be spending time with them, that's allThe Mormon church still denies he had anything to do with it.
That's the whole thing: the Mormon church is denying complicity in any way, the upper echelon of the Mormon church. But if you read some of these things you'll see the information. Right now I'm looking through documents where they say, "This comes from up above." It comes from the highest realm. In the Mormon church at that time, since Joseph Smith, it's always been an autocracy, nothing happens without the knowledge of the prophet, the revelatory president.

Now that this issue is fresh again, do you think it could hurt Mitt Romney's bid for the presidential nomination?
Well, look, John Kennedy ran as a Catholic. We in this country are tolerant of religions and we have to respect everybody's way towards God. But then we have to look at the life of each of these candidates. This isn't a movie to expose people who are running for political office; this is a true event, an injustice that has to be righted. I don't know what the ramifications will be. But you have to find the truth. If I were a Mormon, would I want this thing to come out? I would. As we're raised, we're given a certain set of principles from the community, and if there's something that's being hidden that's going to injure us along the way to the future, I want to know. Give me the truth.

The problem is that Brigham Young was a prophet. There's a university named after him. It's a bitter pill to swallow—that one of the elders of your religion might have been responsible for a mass murder.
The Catholic church under John Paul II came out with a statement apologizing for the sins of the past. Germany, after WWII, did the same, saying, "we apologize to the world and to the Jewish people." Good! Important! It's not going to bring people back to life, but you must know what the realities are. If the church didn't acknowledge the Inquisition and the various aspects of its past—violences against people in the name of the church—then there would be something wrong with the church.

You've done a lot of different kinds of movies in your career. Why did you decide on this one?
When I read this story, I knew it was very pertinent because of what we're going through with religious fanaticism and the form it's taken—Islamic fundamentalists. It seemed to give an insight into what's going on today. How programming can so distort a person that they strap a bomb onto their back and go onto a bus and kill innocent people. How can that be? You look at this movie and you can see some of the architecture of that. It's very relevant.

Does the same go for the bigger-budget action films you've made like Anaconda and Pearl Harbor?
Well, Anaconda. I will always have to be measured against Anaconda. Anaconda was to me, it was good and evil. It's an old tale. But it was a well-told story and it had some fantastic elements to it that I thought would be fun for an audience. I had a father who was a storyteller and he used to tell us stories at night. And it reminded me to some degree, I could hear my father saying, "And there they were, they were on the Amazon river, and a typhoon came..." So I said, let's do that. It was a fun movie.

I saw that you were the producer and star of something called Karate Dog. What's that all about?
That was a film my partner liked. He put it together, and I said I'd do it. It's a nice little story about a dog detective, a dog who can speak. And I play the villain who is deranged because he's found a steroid and fallen in love with it and it's messed up his thinking.

So it's a kids movie then?
Yeah, it's a kids movie.

The press has been unkind about your relationship with Angelina Jolie over the last few years. One recent item had you flubbing the name of one of her daughters.
What! Flubbed the name?

Do you have any response?
No, listen, I haven't been in touch with the kids and I would love to be spending time with them, that's all. I have nothing to say, people want to make news out of everything. It's just a cruel slap at somebody, and it becomes a part of our mythology, we can't correct it. I don't want to bring attention to it again. It always hurts me when things are brought back to the fore that are distorted. I send my love to Angie and her family.

Have you met Brad Pitt?
We all know each other a bit. I've always liked Brad.

Do you ever miss Billy Bob Thornton?
I don't want to make any glib statements about that either.

I'm contractually obligated to ask those questions, my apologies. Thanks for taking the time to talk international relations with us.
I hope it comes out in a nice way so I can look at it and go, "That's pretty much what we said." It's very hard this stuff. For instance, the issues we talked about with George Bush, I was also against the attacks on Clinton. I thought they distracted from his focus on the presidency. Clinton was a very brilliant guy and can probably handle a lot of things, as George Bush seems to in the face of this attack. He seems to keep his center, as did Clinton, surprisingly. I'm not saying they don't make mistakes, these guys. They do. But to use it just in order to step into a place of power and take advantage, there's something distasteful to me about that. And it can get downright dangerous. We should be very high-minded. And if that doesn't sell magazines, I'm sorry about that. But the portrait of American leadership from the beginning has been people rising above the mud, being able to be strong enough hold themselves against the nonsense.

But there's still a role for journalism in democracy, right?
Of course. You bet. There's a place for good actors in movies too. But you can do damage to a decent movie by going off in the wrong direction too. My brother Chip [Taylor] wrote a song—he wrote "Wild Thing" and he wrote it at 2:00 in the morning—one of the lyrics was very telling: "The trouble with humans is they're only human / The trouble with trouble is it's always around." That's the deal. We have to fight against gravity to stand up. We should help each other. And the truth is very important. Journalism can be helpful too, but once it bends to sensationalism and commercialism and becomes agenda-driven, it's not so good.