Inside Angelina Jolie’s Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal - E! Online
Maria is Angelina Jolie's first starring role in three years. In honor of her Critics Choice Award nomination, read about her return to Hollywood and her thoughts on leaving L.A. one day.
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Angelina Jolie wasn’t exactly dying to become an actress.
In fact, the Oscar winner had considered other career paths before entering Hollywood—like funeral director.
"Doesn’t it make sense though?" Jolie teased during her December 2024 appearance on The Tonight Show, her first late-night appearance in about a decade. "My grandfather died, and I remembered thinking this is not how they should be. This should be a celebration of life. And since I’m not afraid of death and I was comfortable with it, I thought this would be a great career path for me. I could make this better. I could do a thing here. It’s my fallback career now."
Given her lengthy list of credits and numerous nominations for acting honors, it’s safe to say she won’t be needing the backup plan. Still, the Maria star—who, despite a recent Oscars snub, is up for a Critics Choice Award for her portrayal of opera singer Maria Callas—has admitted she’s had second thoughts about the road she’s taken.
"I wouldn’t be an actress today," Jolie told WSJ. Magazine in a December 2023 interview. At least not Hollywood, that is. "When I was starting out, it wasn’t as much of an expectation to be as public, to share so much."
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However, it appears the industry was always the expectation of her late mother Marcheline Bertrand, who dreamed of becoming an actress herself.
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
“She loved being a stay-at-home mom, but she really wanted me to be an actress,” Jolie told W Magazine in January. (Plus it was hardly a foreign path as the daughter of acting legend Jon Voight. Even brother James Haven is in the industry.) "So, I don’t remember making the choice to be an actress. I remembered it made my mom happy, and I started to help pay bills and things like that when I was young. My mom was my manager, and we were a team. I always wanted to buy her a house and things like that."
But when her mother died in 2007 following battles with ovarian and breast cancer, Jolie’s relationship with the craft changed.
“When my mom passed, it was harder for me to be an actress for a while,” the 49-year-old added, “‘cause I realized how much it was for her.”
Even before her mother’s death, Jolie—who underwent a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 after it was detected she carried the BRCA1 gene—found herself unfazed by all the attention she received in the industry, which only grew after her 2000 Oscar win for Girl, Interrupted.
"Because I grew up around Hollywood, I was never impressed with it," she explained to WSJ. Magazine. "I never bought into it as significant or important."
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While her performances gave fans a lot to talk about—with her going on to star in movies like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, the Changeling and Maleficent to name a few—her personal life did, too.
After her brief marriage to English actor Jonny Lee Miller in the ‘90s, Jolie wed her Pushing Tin costar Billy Bob Thornton in 2000. Despite the tattoo tributes and blood vial necklaces, they broke up after two years of marriage and finalized their split in 2003.
Her next romance would be that rarely discussed relationship with Brad Pitt, the man she met while they were working on Mr. & Mrs. Smith and he was still married to Jennifer Aniston. He announced his split from the Friends star in 2005 months before the movie’s release.
Over the next decade, Jolie and Pitt grew their family. He became the father to her children Maddox, 23, and Zahara, 20—whom she had adopted in 2002 and 2005, respectively—and the couple welcomed daughter Shiloh, 18, in 2006. The following year, Jolie and Pitt adopted son Pax, 21. And in 2008, she gave birth to now-16-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne. After nearly a decade together, Brangelina tied the knot in 2014.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
But two years later, Jolie announced the end of her marriage to Pitt. The divorce filing came days after an alleged plane incident, with her accusing the actor of being abusive onboard. Pitt has denied the allegations, and no charges were filed against him. The Department of Children and Family Services in Los Angeles County and the FBI also closed their investigations into the accusations.
While Jolie and Pitt were officially declared single in 2019, their legal battle—including over custody of their children and their French winery Château Miraval—continued. It wouldn’t be until 2024 that they would reach a divorce settlement.
The rise and fall of Pitt and Jolie’s romance was tabloid fodder. However, the Gia alum has made it clear she doesn’t read what the internet says about her life.
“I’ve just been around so long,” she told WSJ. Magazine, “and there’s been everything said.”
In the eight years since her divorce filing from Pitt, Jolie has starred in seven films. While this is certainly no small feat, it’s a total that’s less than the three to five movies she’d release in a single year during the ‘90s and early aughts.
As for the reason Jolie stepped back from the spotlight? "We had to heal," she told WSJ. Magazine, referencing her and her children without going into specifics. "There are things we needed to heal from."
Pablo Larrai?n/Netflix
Maria marks the first starring role for Jolie in three years—with her last one being 2021’s Eternals (though she also directed 2024’s Without Blood). She attributes her return to the front of the camera to where her children are in life.
"They’re a bit older, getting more independent," she noted to The Hollywood Reporter in August. "I’m less needed and so able to go away for different periods of time. And they’re old enough to join me at work. It’s a new season in our lives. I’m very excited for them to be coming into their own more and more every day."
And they did join her at work during the filming of Maria, with Maddox and Pax serving as production assistants. However, this may not come as a surprise as Jolie has collaborated with her children on other projects in the past—including working with Vivienne to produce the Broadway adaptation of The Outsiders that debuted in 2024.
While the A-lister continues to stay busy in Hollywood—with her confirming to WSJ. Magazine a third Maleficent movie is in the works—she’d like to one day move away from Los Angeles.
“I am here because I have to be here from a divorce, but as soon as they’re 18, I’ll be able to leave,” she told The Hollywood Reporter (the twins reach that milestone in July 2026). “When you have a big family, you want them to have privacy, peace, safety. I have a house now to raise my children, but sometimes this place can be…that humanity that I found across the world is not what I grew up with here."
When she actually leaves L.A., she continued, "I’ll spend a lot of time in Cambodia. I’ll spend time visiting my family members wherever they may be in the world.”
But no matter where Jolie goes or what other careers she may pursue—she’s also a pilot, founder of the fashion brand Atelier Jolie and a humanitarian—she knows that being a mom will always be the role she loves most.
"It’s my happiness,” she told Good Morning America in November. "You can take everything else away from me. Nothing else matters."
To learn more about her family, keep reading.
STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Having fallen in love with the country of Cambodia while filming 2001's Tomb Raider, Angelina Jolie paid a visit to an orphanage in the provincial town of Battambang in the hopes of finding her first child.
Walking through, "I didn’t feel a connection with any of them," she later told Vanity Fair, until she saw Maddox—born Aug. 5, 2001—lying in a box suspended from the ceiling. Feeling that bond in an instant, she said, "I cried and cried."
Though the then-26-year-old adopted her eldest son as a single mother, after she began dating future husband Brad Pitt, he started the process to adopt him as well.
Thanks to an interest in his mom's work, when Angelina directed 2017's First They Killed My Father, the film adaptation of her friend Loung Ung's book about the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge regime, Maddox signed on as executive producer. “I was trying to help wherever I could,”" he told People of the role. As for his boss, aka mom, she's "fun, funny, and easy to work with,” he said. "She’s a wonder."
After studying biochemistry at South Korea's Yonsei University (a choice his mom said she "could not be happier about"), Maddox attended a state dinner at the White House in April 2023 when President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden hosted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady Kim Keon Hee.
Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images
Born on Nov. 29, 2003, "He spent three-and-a-half years of his life in one place, in one room, in this one little iron bed with 20 other kids, and having no choice for himself to do things, having no freedom," Angelina told MSN in 2007 of Pax's early years in an orphange outside Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Living with Maddox and sisters Zahara and Shiloh, "suddenly, here he is in a very free situation with new brothers and sisters and a mom and dad," Angelina continued. "He’s learning English and he’s so loving and he’s wild and free 'cause he suddenly has freedom so he’s a little wild and crazy. But what a tough, remarkable little person."
With an interest in the family business, Pax voiced the character Yoo in Angelina's animated 2016 film Kung Fu Panda 3 and served as set photographer on First They Killed My Father before attending the 2018 Golden Globes with his mom.
He also helped decorate Atelier Jolie, a creative fashion collective and alteration company Angelina opened in NYC, and worked in the assistant director department on the Italian set of her upcoming film Without Blood.
As Angelina told People of working with both Pax and Maddox, "When a film crew is at its best, it feels like a big family, so it felt natural."
Jon Kopaloff/WireImage
Then-3-year-old Maddox accompanied Angelina to the Hawassa, Ethiopia orphanage where she met eldest daughter Zahara, born Jan. 8, 2005. "Mad loves her," the actress later told Anderson Cooper. "When Z came home she was older, she was seven months old, so for Mad it’s like having this tiny pet he can just hold and look at."
Like her siblings, Zahara has expressed interest in all facets of her mother's work, attending red carpets, launching her charitable Zahara Collection jewelry line in collaboration with jeweler Robert Procop in 2019 and making trips to Syrian refugee camps as part of her mom's efforts with the UNHCR.
In August 2022, Angelina grew emotional while dropping Zahara off at Atlanta's Spelman College ("I haven't started crying yet so…hopefully I can hold it together," she shared in an Instagram video), later returning for the HBCU's homecoming festivities.
Zahara—who joined the school's Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in 2023—has also accompanied the actress on several trips to Washington, D.C. She was by Angelina's side when she gave a tearful speech promoting the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act in February 2022 and a year later when they met with lawmakers to advocate for the passage of the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2022.
Karwai Tang/WireImage
Months after announcing her pregnancy, Angelina and Brad welcomed Shiloh at Cottage Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia on May 27, 2006. "Shi’s so full of light and love, she’s just a little honey, and very, very funny," Angelina said in her MSN interview. "I think I’m recognizing some of myself in that one—she’s going to be a little bit of trouble!"
Making her red carpet debut at the Unbroken premiere in 2014, Shiloh went on to appear at events for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, The Breadwinner and Dumbo, the 2018 National Board of Review Awards Gala and the 2021 Eternals red carpet, where she wore Mom's Dior gown.
"I'm like, 'Oh my god, wear it and wear it better than me!" Angelina told E!'s Daily Pop of encouraging her kids to raid her closet. "And take it, and it's your turn, anything.' I'm that mom."
In addition to showing interest in Angelina's humanitarian efforts, Shiloh seems to have taken a few steps into the entertainment industry, spending time at L.A.'s Millennium Dance Complex.
On her 18th birthday in 2024, the teen submitted a petition at a Los Angeles Court to remove the hyphenated "Pitt" part of her surname to be known as Shiloh Nouvel Jolie. A source close to the matter told E! News Shiloh had hired her own lawyer and paid for it on her own.
Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage
Debuting her baby bump at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards, Angelina later gave birth to Knox and then his twin sister Vivienne in Nice, France, on July 12, 2008. Settling in at their Château Miraval, “It is chaos, but we are managing it and having a wonderful time,” Angelina told People soon after, adding that Shiloh and Zahara liked to choose the twins' clothes "and help change and hold them."
Named for Brad's grandfather, Hal Knox Hillhouse, Angelina noted that “Knox is a lot like Brad, emotionally and physically." And, indeed, the pair did bear a striking resemblance while attending the 2015 British motorcycle Grand Prix.
Like older siblings Pax, Zahara and Shiloh, Knox took on a small role in 2016's Kung Fu Panda 3, voicing the part of Ku Ku. "They were kind of shy," Jolie told ET. "They don't really want to be actors, but I didn't want them to miss the opportunity. They came in, and they had a lot of fun with it."
Bruce Glikas/Getty Images
Knox's younger-by-a-minute fraternal twin "reminds me of my mother in that she isn't focused on being the center of attention but in being a support to other creatives," Angelina told E! News in a statement, referring to her late mom Marcheline Bertrand. "She's very thoughtful and serious about theatre and working hard to best understand how to contribute."
Though she nailed her role as the younger version of Elle Fanning's Aurora in 2014's Maleficent ("I was actually shocked that she was doing so well she went back and hit her mark! It's frightening," Angelina said at the time), the high schooler has since gravitated toward behind-the-scenes roles.
Angelina said that Vivienne was the one to encourage her to help bring an adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film The Outsiders to Broadway, so the teen ended up serving as a volunteer assistant to her producer mom on the Tony winner.
“She’ll correct me," Angelina told People of Vivienne, who's credited in the playbill as Vivienne Jolie. "She'll say, 'Didn't you read the memo? We have to do this, we have to go through this,' ” Jolie said. “She’s been a really tough assistant. She takes it very, very seriously.”
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