Angelina Jolie may be an Oscar winner, but the actor has admitted that she “wouldn’t be an actress” if she was starting her career in the industry today.
Making her on-screen debut as a child in 1982, Jolie has gone on to become one of the most famous faces in Hollywood, taking on film projects from Girl, Interrupted to Disney’s Maleficent.
But in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Jolie said that, given her time again, she’d opt for a different career path due to the pressures placed on actors in the modern day.
“I wouldn’t be an actress today,” the 48-year-old said. “When I was starting out, it wasn’t as much of an expectation to be as public, to share so much.”
Jolie said that she is unable to “really have a social life” in Los Angeles due to her status as a public figure, adding that she hoped to leave Los Angeles for good to spend more time at her home in California.
“It’s part of what happened after my divorce,” she explained. “I lost the ability to live and travel as freely. I will move when I can. I grew up in quite a shallow place. Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place. So you seek authenticity.”
The Independent has contacted Jolie’s representatives for comment.
Jolie said that she wants to leave Hollywood and spend more time in her home in Cambodia— (AFP via Getty Images)
While Jolie did not specify whether a departure from Los Angeles would spell the end of her acting career, she recently shared that she had started taking less film work seven years ago, around the time of her split from Pitt.
The actor told British Vogue that she now was “only taking jobs that didn’t require long shoots”. She added: “We had a lot of healing to do. We’re still finding our footing.”
In September 2016, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt after two years of marriage and 12 years together. Since then, the pair have been embroiled in divorce proceedings concerning custody of their six children and disagreements over their various properties.
Elsewhere in the WSJ interview, Jolie said that she had developed Bell’s palsy, a neurological disorder which temporarily paralyses one side of the face, due to stress over the divorce.
The Academy Award-winner first revealed she was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy in 2017, amid a “difficult year” following her split from the Fight Club star.
“My body reacts very strongly to stress,” she said. “My blood sugar goes up and down. I suddenly had Bell’s palsy six months before my divorce.”
As a result of the condition, Jolie said that she was “terrified” for her next film role as Greek opera singer Maria Callas in the Pablo Larrain-directed biopic Maria.
