Angelina Jolie says she 'wouldn't be an actress today' and plans to leave Hollywood: 'A shallow place'
Angelina Jolie revealed that she would not pursue a career in Hollywood if she would be joining the industry in 2023.
The 48-year-old actress told The Wall Street Journal that she would consider acting in theater but would steer clear of Tinseltown due to the public scrutiny that comes with being a Hollywood star.
"I wouldn’t be an actress today," Jolie said. "When I was starting out, it wasn’t as much of an expectation to be as public, to share so much."
Jolie's father, Jon Voight, and her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, were both actors, and she decided to follow in their footsteps at an early age. The Academy Award winner has lived most of her life in the spotlight after rising to fame in the 1990s.
"Because I grew up around Hollywood, I was never very impressed with it," Jolie said. "I never bought into it as significant or important."
The media attention that followed Jolie for decades intensified amid her highly-publicized divorce from Brad Pitt. Jolie and Pitt met on the set of their 2004 movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and they went public with their romance after the actor and his then-wife Jennifer Aniston announced their separation.
The couple became tabloid fixtures with their relationship, earning the moniker "Brangelina." Pitt and Jolie tied the knot in 2014, but they went on to split two years later.
Jolie told the WSJ that she has experienced health problems due to the stress of public scrutiny. She recalled filming the 2018 movie "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil" and noticing that her voice had changed registers since she first played the role in 2014's "Maleficent."
"My body reacts very strongly to stress," Jolie said. "My blood sugar goes up and down. I suddenly had Bell’s palsy six months before my divorce."
Jolie explained that she never reads any media coverage about her, saying, "I’ve just been around so long and there’s been everything said."
The three-time Golden Globe winner told the outlet that she is not currently dating and does not "really have a social life" in Los Angeles.
After filming 2001's "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" in war-torn Cambodia, Jolie began working with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The actress has made field visits to refugee camps in Cambodia, Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Pakistan and told the WSJ that her "closest friends are refugees."
"Maybe four out of six of the women that I am close to are from war and conflict," she noted.
"There’s a reason people who have been through hardship are also much more honest and much more connected, and I am more relaxed with them," Jolie explained. "Why do I like spending time with people who’ve survived and are refugees? They’ve confronted so much in life that it brings forward not just strength, but humanity."
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Jolie also elaborated on her strong relationships with her six children. "They are the closest people to me and my life, and they’re my close friends," she said. "We’re seven very different people, which is our strength."
The actress and Pitt share sons Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, and Knox, 15, and daughters Zahara, 18, Shiloh, 17, and Vivienne, 15. In September 2016, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt following an alleged altercation on a private jet.
During the filing, Jolie asked for physical custody of their children. In November of the same year, Pitt responded to Jolie’s divorce petition and requested both joint and physical custody of their children. Since then, the two have been battling it out in court.
In addition to their custody dispute, the former couple have also been engaged in a bitter fight over their French winery, Château Miraval.
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Since filing for divorce, Jolie has only appeared in five films. The actress told the WSJ that she had refrained from taking on projects that would require her to be apart from her children.
"We had to heal," she said. "There are things we needed to heal from."
During her interview, Jolie also revealed that she plans to move out of Los Angeles eventually and spend more time at her home in Cambodia.
"It’s part of what happened after my divorce. I lost the ability to live and travel as freely. I will move when I can," she said.
"I grew up in quite a shallow place," Jolie added. "Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place. So you seek authenticity."