Angelina Jolie‘s famous lips may have been described as “bee stung,” but luckily that didn’t literally come to be in a skin-crawling National Geographic photo she posed for, for today’s World Bee Day.
To help celebrate the important insects — and shine a light on a UNESCO-Guerlain program that trains women “as beekeeper-entrepreneurs and protectors of native bee habitats around the world” — the Oscar winner was actually covered in bees.
National Geographic photographer Dan Winters, an amateur beekeeper himself — detailed what it took to get the buzzy snap, which used a queen bee pheromone to attract the insects to the already attractive actress, humanitarian, and filmmaker.
“Shooting during the pandemic, with a full crew and live bees, made the execution complex,” Winters tells NatGeo. “Everyone on set, except Angelina, had to be in a protective suit. It had to be quiet and fairly dark to keep the bees calm.”
He said, “Angelina stood perfectly still, covered in bees for 18 minutes without a sting.”
For her part, Jolie, who helped conceive the dramatic shoot, told National Geographic, “We couldn’t shower for three days before. Because they told me, ‘If you have all these different scents, shampoos and perfumes and things, the bee doesn’t know what you are.’ She also had to put plugs in her nose and ears, “so you don’t give them as many holes to climb in.”
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