"That's really the truth of it."
Angelina Jolie Explains How Her 'Family Situation' Affected Her Career
Though she has a buzzy part in the upcoming Marvel epic The Eternals, Angelina Jolie would actually prefer to be directing more right now. It's just that she can't, and her high-profile divorce from Brad Pitt seems to be the reason why.
"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," the star told Entertainment Weekly while promoting her upcoming firefighter thriller, Those Who Wish Me Dead. "I needed to just do shorter jobs and be home more, so I kind of went back to doing a few acting jobs. That's really the truth of it."
Jolie's first narrative feature as a director, In the Land of Blood and Honey, premiered in 2011, and was quickly followed by Unbroken and By the Sea, in which she co-starred with Pitt. But their 2016 divorce, which still hasn't been finalized, apparently threw a wrench into her plans to continue directing. Since 2017's First They Killed My Father, she hasn't helmed any projects, instead returning to one of her biggest roles in 2019's Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.
Now, things have come full circle: Jolie is back to the stunt-heavy work that defined an earlier phase of her career, when she was leading action flicks, like the Lara Croft movies. This time, though, Jolie's a mom, and it comes through in her performance. In Those Who Wish Me Dead, her character isn't particularly maternal, but Jolie couldn't help but act kindly toward her young co-star. She recalled, "Sometimes [director] Taylor [Sheridan] would correct me because my behavior towards a child was different from [character Hannah's] behavior towards a child. It took me a little bit to treat [so-star Finn Little] badly, but I got there!"
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt share six children: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne Jolie-Pitt. In February, she reflected on life as a stay-at-home-mom who used to play the tomb raider: “Isn’t that funny? There was a day I was an action star, and now the kids are telling me to get off the trampoline because I’ll hurt myself.”
This story originally appeared on: Glamour - Author:Elizabeth Logan
