Already have an account?
Get back to the

Angelina Jolie Says Chickenpox Experience Was “Absurd”

Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie sat down with the Today show, where she discussed her recent bout with chickenpox: "It was so absurd," the Unbroken director said.

Itchy, scratchy insanity! Angelina Jolie sat down with the Today show's Al Roker on Friday, Jan. 2, where she discussed her new box office hit Unbroken, marriage to Brad Pitt, and recent bout with chickenpox.

"It was so absurd," Jolie, 39, told Roker of suffering from the illness last month. The timing of battling chickenpox was less than favorable, too, considering that the actress was busy promoting Unbroken. "What was even stranger, during the day before, I was doing interviews," she explained, "and I was like, 'what is happening?!'"

Related: PHOTOS: Angie's many Us Weekly covers

Luckily, her dashing husband, 51, stepped up to the plate and attended the Dec. 15 Los Angeles premiere of the flick in her place with their kids Maddox, 13, Pax, 11, and Shiloh, 8.

"It was really fun that my kids took the mantle," Jolie told the Today show. "They took it very seriously when I said, 'You've got to represent mom. You gotta do this for me. You gotta do this for Louie [Zamperini].'"

Related: PHOTOS: Celeb deaths in 2014

Jolie, who was considerably close to late Olympian Zamperini, the inspiration for Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling book, revealed that the kids were equally in awe of the POW survivor.

For the premiere, Shiloh even wore a special keepsake that belonged to Zamperini, who passed away last year at age 97. "She had Louie's shoe on that he won in 1940," Jolie told Roker with a smile.

Related: PHOTOS: Brangelina's love story

Shifting gears to her talked-about marriage, Jolie opened up to Roker about what it was like directing Pitt on the set of their upcoming drama By the Sea. "It was like a honeymoon," she said of directing her husband in Malta, days after they tied the knot in France last summer. "Just [it was] like on-screen and a dysfunctional one."

Still, she said it was for the best. "As a director, you want to help your actor," Jolie explained. "As a wife, you really want to help your husband. So you want everything to be right for them. But there's something we found, which is if you work with the person you love and trust most in this world, it's pretty great."

Related: PHOTOS: Angie around the world

Roker said that during the interview, he also asked Jolie about the Sony hack — which the actress kindly declined to comment about. (Jolie was the subject of several acerbic email exchanges between Hollywood hotshot producer Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures Entertainment head Amy Pascal.) "She didn't want to get into that," Roker told his co-hosts, adding: "We moved on."

In this article

Got a Tip form close button
Got a tip for US?
We're All Ears for Celebrity Buzz!