It’s hard to picture Angelina Jolie without her adorable kids in tow. But in her 20s, she reveals she never saw herself as a mother.
She told reporters in Cambodia, where she is shooting her latest film, “It’s strange, I never wanted to have a baby. I never wanted to be pregnant. I never babysat. I never thought of myself as a mother.”
Those days are long gone now as she is the proud mom to six kids: Maddox, 14; Pax, 12; Zahara, 11; Shiloh, 9 and twins Vivienne and Knox, 7.
But what changed her mind?
Back in 2000, she arrived in Cambodia to shoot Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Her first encounter with the small but proud country changed her perspective. She was touched by the warmth and generosity of Cambodians, despite the tragic history of their country.
“I realized there was so much about history that I had not been taught in school, and so much about life that I needed to understand, and I was very humbled by it,” she said.
Growing up in Los Angeles, she felt a real emptiness. While shooting scenes for Lara Croft which involved her skipping through ‘landmines’, it gave her a peek into the dangers refugees face ravaged by war. “That trip triggered my realization of how little I knew and the beginning of my search for that knowledge.”
After this first meaningful encounter with Cambodia and its culture, she got in touch with United Nations and went back to the country with them as a goodwill ambassador.
While there, she spent some time playing games with young students and it just hit her. “It was suddenly very clear to me that my son was in the country, somewhere.”
She adopted her eldest son Maddox in 2002. A year later she established a foundation in his name which helps fund health care, education and conservation projects in rural Cambodia.
Her current film “First They Killed My Father,” is based on a memoir written from a child’s perspective by a survivor of he 1970s Cambodian genocide, which left close to 2 million dead.
Angelina is directing the film for Netflix, and will star an all-Cambodian cast. She considers it to be the most important film of her career.
Maddox, now 14, has joined her in Cambodia to help out with the film.
“For me, this is the moment, where finally my life is kind of in line,” said Angelina. “I feel I’m finally where I should be.”
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