Angelina Jolie is known for her acting and producing skills, but did you know she’s also a doting mother who enjoys working with her children? While filming the 2014 Disney movie Maleficent, Angelina’s daughter Vivienne was cast in the role of young Princess Aurora. But why did Angelina choose Vivienne for the role?
According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Angelina revealed that all of the other child actors who auditioned for the role were too scared to work with her in character as Sleeping Beauty’s nemesis, Maleficent. With her prosthetic cheekbones and horns, it was understandable that young performers would be frightened. Angelina’s own son, Pax, was even terrified the first time he saw her in costume and ran away crying.
So, Angelina had to find a child actor who wasn’t afraid of her makeup and could work with her comfortably on set. Enter Vivienne. Angelina explained that “it had to be a child that liked me and wasn’t afraid of my horns and my eyes and my claws. So it had to be Viv.”
Vivienne wasn’t the only Jolie-Pitt child to work on the movie. Zahara and Pax also had small walk-on roles, and Angelina herself played the lead role of Maleficent. Despite her busy schedule, Angelina always makes time for her children and finds ways to work with them.
In fact, Angelina and Vivienne recently worked together again on Angelina’s upcoming Broadway musical adaptation of The Outsiders. Angelina hired Vivienne as her volunteer assistant on the project, and the 15-year-old proved to be a valuable asset. Angelina described Vivienne as “very thoughtful and serious about theatre and working hard to best understand how to contribute.”
Angelina’s journey as a mother and actress has been filled with challenges, including her decision to undergo a double mastectomy after testing positive for the BRCA1 gene. But through it all, she has remained a devoted mother and an accomplished actress and producer. We can’t wait to see what she and her children will achieve next!
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