Angie opens up! In a stunning new Vogue cover and story, Angelina Jolie gets candid about her kids and her marriage for the fashion Bible’s November issue.
The interview and accompanying photo shoot, which the Today show teased on Friday, Oct. 16, features several photographs of the A-list family having a blast together, as shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.
The family enjoyed their getaway during the filming of Jolie and Pitt’s upcoming drama By the Sea — the director and actress’ first film with her husband, 51, since 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith. In the interview, she called the Maltese island set their “honeymoon.”
“This is the only film I’ve done that is completely based on my own crazy mind,” Jolie, 40, told Vogue. “As artists we wanted something that took us out of our comfort zones. Just being raw actors. It’s not the safest idea. But life is short.”
When asked if her marriage is like the tormented one portrayed in the film, the Oscar winner replied, “Brad and I have our issues, but if the characters were even remotely close to our problems, we couldn’t have made the film.”
The Maleficent actress, who shines on the cover in a black and white striped sweater, also opened up about feeling secure in her identity as she ages. Though many women dread getting older, Jolie says she’s embracing what the future holds.
“I feel grounded as a woman. I know others do too. Both of the women in my family, my mother and my grandmother [who passed due to ovarian cancer], started dying in their 40s. I’m 40. I can’t wait to hit 50 and know I made it,” Jolie, who famously got both a preventive double mastectomy and a preventive oophorectomy, told the magazine.
The mom of Maddox, 14, Pax, 11, Zahara, 10, Shiloh, 9, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 7, also thinks it’s important for her kids to embrace their roots.
“The boys know they’re from Southeast Asia, and they have their food and their music and their friends, and they have a pride particular to them,” Jolie said of her children. “But I want them to be just as interested in the history of their sisters’ countries and Mommy’s country so we don’t start dividing. Instead of taking [Zahara] on a special trip, we all go to Africa and we have a great time.”
