Angelina Jolie Taking a Year of Me-Time After Newest Feature
The past twelve months have been a notably turbulent period for Angelina Jolie. She first began principal photography in Cambodia on her latest directorial effort First They Killed My Father back in February 2016, and split from husband Brad Pitt while she was still locked in the production process last September. A year later, and Jolie’s adaptation of a harrowing memoir of life lived under the Khmer Rouge death squads is earning plaudits at the big festivals. But the point is that the end of this press cycle will be the first opportunity Jolie’s really had to breathe since her divorce, and she intends on taking a moment.
The Hollywood Reporter had a few words with the actress-director at the Telluride Film Festival this past weekend, and she let slip that she’s been on a brief hiatus since wrapping work on First They Killed My Father (which hits Netflix on September 15). Jolie said that she’s taken “over a year off now” to deal with a “complicated family situation” involving the six children that she and former spouse Pitt parented. Jolie stated that he doesn’t have anything on the docket right now, and expects to star in a Maleficent sequel sometime soon, but she’s just enjoying a moment of repose for the time being.
The real nugget of the THR interview came near the tail end, when Jolie stated her intention to eventually get out of the acting game and move into directing full-time. So long as she can land deals — which, c’mon, she’s Angelina Jolie — she’ll continue on the path as a filmmaker: “At some point, I'll probably just direct. If I'm allowed to. But you just don't know if you can have a career as a director. You don't know how things are going to be received.” Judging from the warm notices for her latest, the future prospects are looking pretty rosy.