7 Things We Learned From Angelina Jolie's THR Podcast: Brad Pitt, Jon Voight and More

Director opened up about her personal and professional life on publication's Awards Chatter podacast

By Jess Cohen Dec 04, 2017 10:20 PMTags
Angelina JolieNeilson Barnard/Getty Images

Angelina Jolie is opening up about her personal and professional life.

The director's film First They Killed My Father is getting a lot of award season buzz and she sat down for an interview on The Hollywood Reporter's podcast Awards Chatter. During the interview, Jolie discussed her films, working with ex Brad Pitt and her relationship with her father Jon Voight with the podcast's host Scott Feinberg.

Now we're sharing all the things we learned from the interview with you.

Take a look below to see the seven things we learned from the podcast!

Jeff Vespa/WireImage

1. She Doesn't Go By Angelina Jolie Voight Partly Because She Didn't Feel "That Close" to her Father as a Child: 

"I didn't feel that close to my father. I felt more of my mother's daughter when I was a child. So that was one part of it. The second part of it was I did want to have my own identity and didn't' want to walk into a room as Jon's daughter. I wanted to see if I could get the job on my own, and not be hired for a name."

2. Her "Wild Child" Behavior Sounds "Weirder" Than It Was:

"I love that the whole world knows I lived with somebody at 14, like that somehow is relevant. It sounds weirder than it was, I think. I always made very strong choices. I was always very strong-willed. I didn't blend in very well. All of those things… I think I'm still a bit like that. And I don't know… I see that same wild in my children in that sense of wanting to kind of break barriers. I see them finding something very strong and needing to go their own way, and it's against what society's norms are. And I think that's wonderful and I think that's the thing that eventually makes for change. But of course it  needs to be directed and ya know when you're young it can get you in a lot of trouble and it can be self-destructed and it can be just chaotic. When it finds purpose it can be fantastic. It can be something that then guides you. A sense of wild and a sense of unconventional is I think something I always embrace and try to continue to embrace."

3. After Breaking Up With Her First Boyfriend, She Didn't Date Again Until Jonny Lee Miller: 

"To be very honest, my mother knew that when I turned 14, I was gonna start dating and she felt, knowing me, that she wanted it to be on my terms in my room and under her roof. In a way that was safer and where I could feel in control. And it was actually a very smart choice because I didn't date again until I got married."

4. One Reason She Started Acting Was to Help Her Mom Pay Bills: 

"I think you want to figure out who you are and… There are a lot that's not in my nature to be an actor. And I'm very happy, very lucky, and very fortunate. I realized how much it was for my mother when she passed away because I felt very differently about it as soon as she was gone. I think when I started acting it was a job. I wanted to help my mom with bills. It was a creative job. Something you get to explore different times in history, different people, different sides of yourself, learn different skills so it's a wonderful job to have as you grow, as you learn as a person. But you're also not those people, and you're young and you don't know exactly who you are and yet you also get a microphone in front of your face and you're 17, 18, people asking for your opinions and you haven't formed those yet and you shouldn't form them yet, completely."

5. She Thought Her Acting Days Were Over After Split From Jonny:

"It's so hard to explain yourself when you're still a mystery to yourself. Again, I think I've always been in this kind of struggle with being an actor, or being public. It never answered everything for me. It wasn't suddenly I got to act and then why would I make choices? I make choices because I still wasn't me. I still wasn't feeling a complete and whole as a person. After Gia, I separated from Jonny and I separated amicably and we're still very close friends but we were young and I was moving to New York. There's life to be lived and we needed some space to do so and help each other grow. So I moved to New York on my own, didn't know anybody and got an apartment and started to go to NYU. I thought I had expressed what I could and wanted to figure out who else I was. I was ready to kind of have a different life. I had grown up, ya know, Hollywood and New York but mainly Hollywood. I'd done what everybody said you should do, become an actor, this is what should make you happy right? People tell you if you look good enough, if you have money, if you have success, if you're an actor, this is… these are all the things that should make a person happy, I was miserable. I was completely unhappy."

6. She and Jon Voight Have Found a "New Relationship" Through Her Kids: 

"Through grandchildren now we're finding a new relationship and it's very, very nice. we've had some difficulties. Through art is a way we've been able to talk. It's a common language. We don't really talk politics well."

7. She Thought Working on By the Sea With Brad Pitt Would Be a "Good Way" for Them to Communicate:

 "We had met working together and we worked together well...I wanted us to do some serious work together...I thought it would be a good way for us to communicate. In some ways it was, and in some ways we learned some things. But there was a heaviness probably during that situation that carried on and it wasn't because of the film. It was something that we were dealing...things happen for different reasons, and things…why did I write that exact piece? Why did we feel that way when we made it? I'm not sure."

She continued, "My life has been… I've had many, many extraordinary very fortunate things happen and it's also been many things over the years that had been challenging. So that wasn't a particular time when I wrote it...I had my mastectomy right before I had Unbroken. Over the span of that decade, I did lose my mother. I did have my mastectomy, and I did then have an ovarian cancer scare and have that surgery as well, and other things of course that happened in life that you go through. A piece of art can be something that's healing or something that's difficult. I don't know. I'm glad we did that film because we did explore something together. Whatever it was maybe it didn't solve certain things, but we did communicate something that needed to be communicated to each other."

You can listen to the entire podcast HERE.

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