No other visiting cast and crew may have faced as much controversy as Hollywood star, Angelina Jolie and the unit of A Mighty Heart - the film based on the book by Marianne Pearl and Sarah Crichton. It describes the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan and the intense efforts to find him during the weeks following his disappearance and his eventual murder, affirming the love between Daniel and Marianne.

In the sylvan city of Pune for five weeks, the waif-like Angelina and her family (superstar-producer, Brad Pitt and three kids) spent almost all of their time in a bungalow where most of the film was shot. In fact, at a brief press meeting held later in Mumbai - at the unconventional time of 9.00 pm - when asked about the memories of India that she would take back, Angelina said that it would be of "that house in Pune where we went through a lot and got to know each other". And, all around, the press and paparazzi stalked, snooped and conjectured; episodes with bodyguards were reported and stories and tensions ran high.

In all this melee no one reported about Angelina's work with the downtrodden and the forgotten, all over the world. She became aware of a worldwide humanitarian crisis while shooting for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in widely mined and innately poor, Cambodia. "Cambodia was really an eye-opener for me," Angelina was reported as saying. She turned to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for information on international trouble spots and visited refugee camps around the world to experience these at first hand. Angelina travelled to Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Afghan refugees in Pakistan ending up as a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR. Thailand, Ecuador, Kosovo, Kenya, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Jordan were some of the places that she visited. Donations from the Jolie/Pitt Foundation, recognition with humanitarian awards at home and abroad, two kids adopted and so the story goes on....

Angelina famously stated some time ago that she would rather give up working and make humanitarian work her life mission. It seems appropriate then that she plays the role of Daniel Pearl's wife, Marianne, a journalist, who is currently touring the world reporting on women's issues. Marianne is someone who is not interested in visiting the sets of the film that everyone else is trying to crash.

"We have met all the real people behind the movie and they know and support the message of A Mighty Heart," says the actress. And, about Marianne? "I have never played anybody who has faced an obstacle like this. She should feel anger but she does not. She loves all religions, all people.... Everything right about her is what the world is missing."

Shooting in India for the film is winding to an end, even as we are grappling with the understanding of disturbing newspaper reports about violent bodyguards of a star who refuses to wear her social conscience on her sleeve and believes in 'action' off the sets, as on it.