Angelina Jolie recently sat down for a new interview and got honest about a tough time in her life. The Oscar winner said she stepped away from acting long before her divorce from Brad Pitt became front-page news, and when she did come back to the screen, it was not because she wanted to. It was because she had to.
Jolie, 51, spoke to Variety about putting her directing dreams on hold for a while. She said her main focus had to be her six children. “I had kind of quit acting before my divorce,” Jolie admitted. “I was focusing on directing, and I thought I’d be doing my international work.”
Angelina Jolie Returned to Acting Out of Necessity, Not Passion
However, things did not go as planned. Her marriage to Pitt fell apart, and a long custody battle followed. Jolie realized she could not keep directing or traveling for humanitarian work the way she wanted. She needed to be home for her kids. She also needed to make money, and acting was the only answer that made sense.
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“But then suddenly the only way to be home more and for short periods of time being away or to make a good amount of money was to go back to acting,” she explained. “I was only taking things that were short or close by or I could take [my children].“
So she picked roles that were easy on her schedule. She chose projects that filmed close to home or did not take too long. That way, she could be there for Maddox, 24, Pax, 22, Zahara, 21, Shiloh, 20, and the twins Knox and Vivienne, who are 17.
Inside Angelina Jolie’s Custody Battle and Years of Legal Turmoil
This gives a real look into how hard those years were for Jolie. The divorce was not finalized until December 2024, after eight years of legal fights. During that time, she was stuck in Los Angeles because of custody rules. She has said before that it felt like being a “raw nerve.”
In case you missed it: The Real Reason Why Angelina Jolie Said No To ‘Charlie’s Angels’
Now that the legal stuff is over, Jolie says she is starting to feel like herself again, and she credits her kids for that. “They know me more than anybody, and they still like me, which says a lot,” she said. “They’re very encouraging of me kind of getting back to aspects of myself that maybe I hadn’t felt as free to do.“
With her twins almost adults, Jolie is thinking about what comes next. There are reports that she plans to leave Los Angeles and move to another country. It sounds like she is ready for a fresh start.
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