Angelina Jolie reveals impact of mom’s death on her acting career

Angelina Jolie recently took a trip down memory lane to speak of an integral part of her acting career—her mother.

The Maleficent star, 49, sat for an interview with W magazine, which was published on January 3, recalling how her late mom, Marcheline Bertrand, encouraged her to go into acting as a child.

“I did it in the beginning because it was my mother’s dream,” she said of Bertrand, who originally tried to pursue her own acting career and quit later to care for her kids.

“But by the time my mom was 25, she was divorced with two kids and she decided she would focus her life solely on motherhood,” Jolie said, referring to her mom’s split from her father Jon Voight.

“She loved being a stay-at-home mom, but she really wanted me to be an actress so I don’t remember making the choice to be an actress. I remembered it made my mom happy,” Jolie added.

Despite wanting to become a funeral director, Jolie let acting be her source of income to contribute to household expenses while Bertrand served as a momager.

“We were a team,” Jolie recalled. “I always wanted to buy her a house and things like that—it kind of started that way.”

Later in 1999, Bertrand was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and also later battled breast cancer. She died at the age of 56 on January 27, 2007.

“When my mom passed, I think it was harder for me to be an actress for a while,” the Salt actress told the publication. “I realised how much it was for her.”

Last month at the Gotham Awards, Jolie reflected on how her mother’s dedication to theater and literature also shaped her career, inspiring both her and her brother Haven, 51.

“I grew up with a mother who kept books inside the oven because there were more books in our house than shelves in the apartment we had,” Jolie told the audience as she accepted the Performer’s Tribute. “It was how she solved the problem, while still making sure we were fed. But it was her priority.”