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What many people may not realize is that Angelina Jolie is a nepotism baby. Both of her parents were big players in the entertainment industry. Her father is actor Jon Voight, and he starred alongside Angelina in her first film role in 1982’s Lookin’ to Get Out – she was only 7 years old at the time. Her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, was also an actress.
She had only a few roles in her lifetime, but supported her daughter’s early acting career, as she even had a minor appearance in Lookin’ to Get Out.
Angelina followed in her family’s footsteps and is now one of the most successful actresses of her generation. Given her prolific career, many fans wonder if Angelina wants her six children to follow in her footsteps. Given that their father, Brad Pitt, is also an actor, it makes even more sense that some or all of their kids would end up working in the entertainment industry.
However, Angelina’s hopes for her children’s futures may surprise fans. Here’s everything the actress has said about her kids following in her and Brad’s footsteps.
Angelina Jolie Admits Her Parents Forced Her Into Acting
Given Angelina’s early start in the industry, it’s easy to assume she’d want to give her kids the same advantage. But the actress has admitted she wasn’t the one who originally wanted to act; it was something her parents pushed her into.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, Angelina expressed gratitude for her career, but said she got into acting so young only to help her family financially.
“It was a job, and I wanted to help my mom with bills,” Angelina said. “It was a creative job, something where you get to explore different times in history, different people, different sides of yourself, learn different skills — so it’s a wonderful job to have as you grow and as you learn as a person.”
Angelina Jolie Once Said She Didn’t Want Her Kids To Be Actors
In 2014, Angelina was candid when she revealed both she and Brad hoped their children wouldn’t get into acting, though she admitted it’s not something they could keep their kids from. Angelina said if their kids do get into the entertainment business, she just hopes it’s a “healthy” relationship.
“Well, Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors. We’ve never talked about it,” she told Collider at the time. “But we also want them to be around film and be a part of mommy and daddy’s life, and for it not to be kept from it either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.”
She echoed a similar sentiment a few years later during a 2016 interview with Today. When asked if she wants her kids to become actors, she replied, “I hope not.”
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“We’ve always said if they’re gonna be actors, I hope they do something and then be actors,” the mom-of-six continued.
Why Angelina Jolie Allowed Her Daughter To Act In Maleficent
Even though Angelina has been vocally against her children going into acting, she did allow one of her children to grace the big screen with her. In 2014, her youngest daughter Vivienne played a young Princess Aurora in Maleficent.
But Angelina says having her daughter appear in the movie wasn’t part of the plan. It was only because Vivienne wasn’t scared of her costume, unlike the other child actors.
“This came about because there were kids that would come to set and they would see me, and I would go up and say hi to them, and they would cry. I actually had one child completely freeze, and then cry. It was like terror. And so, I felt so bad,” Angelina explained.
“Suddenly, there was Vivi, running around looking like little Aurora and everybody thought, ‘Oh, the answer is right there,’” she continued.
“But then, I had to go home and talk to dad. It’s our kid, so it’s so sweet,” Angelina added. “The idea of it was so cute to us, as mommy and daddy. But then, there was the fact that she would be in a film. All of that took us a second.”
Angelina’s other kids may not have appeared on the big screen yet, but she’s allowed them to get a behind-the-scenes look at production as well as hands-on experience.
In 2015, she collaborated with her eldest son Maddox Jolie-Pitt (who was 13 years old at the time) to make a Netflix original movie adaption of the book First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remember. Angelina adopted her son from Cambodia. The film released in 2017 under the name First They Killed My Father.
More recently, in August 2022, it was reported that she had hired her son Maddox as well as her second eldest son, Pax Jolie-Pitt, to work on her new film Without Blood.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Angelina said her sons “worked hard” on the Italian set as part of the assistant director’s department.
Angelina may not have been keen on her kids getting involved in the entertainment industry, but they may follow in their parents’ footsteps after all. And Angelina will clearly support them (and maybe hire them for an upcoming movie).
