Celebrity Mound

The most recognizable woman in the world is going undercover.

Angelina Jolie begins work today on Salt, a spy thriller about a rogue CIA operative who tries to clear her name after she is accused of being a Russian sleeper agent — perhaps falsely, perhaps not.

Among the many different looks she has in the film are a soft-looking, all-business blonde and a raven-haired femme fatale who easily could be concealing a dagger or a gun.

Which is the real Salt? That’s what filmmakers say is the central mystery.

“She’s a character you never know,” says Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who also produced Transformers and the upcoming G.I. Joe. “People who think they know the real her may or may not. Those who think they can tell whether she’s in a disguise also may or may not.

“You’re supposed to be kept guessing. She tells you her agenda, but are you supposed to believe it?”

Jolie’s character, Evelyn A. Salt, originally was called Edwin A. Salt, back when the role was intended for Tom Cruise, who dropped out last summer. Jolie is a proven action star after the Tomb Raider movies, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Wanted, but di Bonaventura says it wasn’t as simple as changing “he” to “she” in the script.

“I had no idea how complex it would be,” he says. “We had to rethink the whole notion of how a man vs. a woman operates in the business world, in personal relationship and in friendships.”

The film co-stars Liev Schreiber (Defiance) as Winter, her ally and supervisor in the CIA’s Russia office, and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children of Men) as Peabody, a counterintelligence officer who tries to take her down.

Salt is being directed by Phillip Noyce, who made the 1990s-era Jack Ryan films with Harrison Ford, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.

He promises Salt will be “a reality-based spy movie with action set pieces as thrilling as the most crowd-pleasing movies of this genre.”

Comparisons are inevitable. Salt recalls TV’s Alias, with its female action hero donning multiple disguises. It also will be measured against the current spy-movie trendsetters: the Daniel Craig reboot of James Bond and Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne films.

Di Bonaventura says Salt is different because the character is trying to hide truths about herself rather than discover them. “The question of Jason Bourne is ‘Who am I?’ ” he says. “The question of Salt is, ‘We know everything about her, but do we?’ (Her pursuers) have a ton of information to act on, but that’s where they begin to question what is real and what isn’t.”

Salt shoots in Washington and New York City. It opens in 2010.

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Angelina Jolie, a Hollywood star deeply involved in the plight of refugees, has called on the Thai government to respect the human rights of Myanmar’s Rohinyga boat people whom Thai authorities have pushed out to sea in recent weeks, a U.N. spokeswoman said Friday.

Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, are on a visit to Thailand, where on Wednesday they toured one of several camps along the Thai-Myanmar border sheltering refugees from Myanmar’s military regime.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Kitt McKinsey told AP Television News that it was a coincidence that Jolie’s visit came just as the plight of the Rohingyas was catching world attention.

The Rohingya, denied citizenship in their native land, have been trying to land in Thailand after treacherous sea journeys only to be towed back to sea and cast adrift by the Thai Navy. Indian officials, who rescued some, believe hundreds perished.

“She was extremely touched by the plight of the Rohingya people. She expressed the hope that the human rights of the Rohingya people will be respected just as the human rights of everyone in the world should be respected,” McKinsey said.

“I also hope the Rohingya situation stabilizes and their life in Myanmar improves so the people do not feel the desperate need to flee, especially considering how dangerous their journey has become,” Jolie was earlier quoted as saying.

The Rohingya, from western Myanmar, represent just a part of Myanmar’s refugee exodus.

For decades, hundreds of thousands of others – most from other ethnic minorities – have fled by land across the country’s eastern border to Thailand.

Most are civilians caught up in fighting between Myanmar government troops and ethnic insurgents. Many flee to Thai refugee camps, where they remain for years with little chance of resettlement in third countries.

On Wednesday, Jolie slapped a bright blue U.N. baseball cap on her head and toured the bamboo huts of the Ban Mai Nai Soi camp, home to 18,111 mainly ethnic Karenni refugees, just two miles (three kilometers) from the Myanmar border, near the northern Thai town of Mae Hong Son.

There are between 116,000 and 135,000 refugees at camps along the border.

Jolie, 33, sat down in a two-room house on stilts and talked with a female refugee, according to an account of the visit given Thursday in a press release by the U.N. refugee agency.

Jolie asked one 26-year-old woman, Pan Sein, whether she was afraid when she made her perilous journey last year from her home village in Myanmar’s Kayah State.

“Yes, I was scared,” Pan Sein replied. “It was dangerous to flee, but even more dangerous to stay in my village.”

This was Jolie’s third visit to Thailand to meet with refugees and her mission has taken her to more than 20 countries to comfort the unwanted.

“I was saddened to meet a 21-year-old woman who was born in a refugee camp, who has never even been out of the camp and is now raising her own child in a camp,” Jolie said.

Thailand recognizes most at the border camps as refugees with legitimate fear of returning to their homeland, but does not accord the Muslim Rohingyas the same status, and seeks to send them away.

“Visiting Ban Mai Nai Soi and seeing how hospitable Thailand has been to 111,000 mostly Karen and Karenni refugees over the years makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores,” Jolie said.

McKinsey said the couple arrived in Thailand by private jet and were now on “private time.” She said she did not know when they would leave the country.