“I needed to just do shorter jobs and be home more, so I kind of went back to doing a few acting jobs,” Angelina Jolie said
Angelina Jolie is opening up about why she has been sticking to acting lately.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly surrounding the upcoming release of her thriller, Those Who Wish Me Dead, the star touched on why she hasn’t taken on a directing gig since 2017’s First They Killed My Father.
“I love directing, but I had a change in my family situation that’s not made it possible for me to direct for a few years,” said Jolie, 45, who is still going through a divorce from ex Brad Pitt after she first filed back in 2016.
“I needed to just do shorter jobs and be home more, so I kind of went back to doing a few acting jobs,” Jolie told EW. “That’s really the truth of it.”
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Jolie also explained why she has had to suppress her own instincts to fit the “not maternal by nature” personality of her character, Hannah, in the upcoming film. “Sometimes [director Taylor Sheridan] would correct me because my behavior towards a child was different from [Hannah’s] behavior towards a child.”
“It took me a little bit to treat [teen actor Finn Little] badly, but I got there!” the actress said with a laugh.
Pitt and Jolie — who wed in 2014 after nine years together — share six children: 12-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne, plus Shiloh, 14, Zahara, 16, Pax, 17, and Maddox, 19.
The Girl, Interrupted Oscar winner recently posed for British Vogue‘s March issue, and spoke with the magazine about what a “typical day” for her family looks like.
“I was never very good at sitting still. Even though I wanted to have many children and be a mom, I always imagined it kind of like Jane Goodall, traveling in the middle of the jungle somewhere,” said Jolie. “I didn’t imagine it in that true, traditional sense. I feel like I’m lacking in all the skills to be a traditional stay-at-home mom.”
“I’m managing through it because the children are quite resilient, and they’re helping me, but I’m not good at it at all,” she added. “… I love them. I feel like we’re such a team. It may sound clichéd, but you love and you try, and even if you burn the eggs, that doesn’t matter in the end.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, the actress said she “loved having babies, but I love sitting up at night and talking to my kids.” She celebrates all the stages of parenthood, noting she likes “the teenage years. I like the older years. I love hanging out with them.”
Those Who Wish Me Dead premieres in theaters and on HBO Max May 14.