Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (2025)

Originally appeared on E! Online

Angelina Jolie wasn’t exactly dying to become an actress.

In fact, the Oscar winner had considered other career paths before entering Hollywood—like funeral director.

"Doesn’t it make sense though?" Jolie teased during her December 2024 appearance on The Tonight Show, her first late-night appearance in about a decade. "My grandfather died, and I remembered thinking this is not how they should be. This should be a celebration of life. And since I’m not afraid of death and I was comfortable with it, I thought this would be a great career path for me. I could make this better. I could do a thing here. It’s my fallback career now."

Given her lengthy list of credits and numerous nominations for acting honors, it’s safe to say she won’t be needing the backup plan. Still, the Maria star—who, despite a recent Oscars snub, is up for a Critics Choice Award for her portrayal of opera singer Maria Callas—has admitted she’s had second thoughts about the road she’s taken.

"I wouldn’t be an actress today," Jolie told WSJ. Magazine in a December 2023 interview. At least not Hollywood, that is. "When I was starting out, it wasn’t as much of an expectation to be as public, to share so much."

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However, it appears the industry was always the expectation of her late mother Marcheline Bertrand, who dreamed of becoming an actress herself.

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (1)

“She loved being a stay-at-home mom, but she really wanted me to be an actress,” Jolie told W Magazine in January. (Plus it was hardly a foreign path as the daughter of acting legend Jon Voight. Even brother James Haven is in the industry.) "So, I don’t remember making the choice to be an actress. I remembered it made my mom happy, and I started to help pay bills and things like that when I was young. My mom was my manager, and we were a team. I always wanted to buy her a house and things like that."

But when her mother died in 2007 following battles with ovarian and breast cancer, Jolie’s relationship with the craft changed.

“When my mom passed, it was harder for me to be an actress for a while,” the 49-year-old added, “‘cause I realized how much it was for her.”

Even before her mother’s death, Jolie—who underwent a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 after it was detected she carried the BRCA1 gene—found herself unfazed by all the attention she received in the industry, which only grew after her 2000 Oscar win for Girl, Interrupted.

"Because I grew up around Hollywood, I was never impressed with it," she explained to WSJ. Magazine. "I never bought into it as significant or important."

While her performances gave fans a lot to talk about—with her going on to star in movies like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, the Changeling and Maleficent to name a few—her personal life did, too.

After her brief marriage to English actor Jonny Lee Miller in the ‘90s, Jolie wed her Pushing Tin costar Billy Bob Thornton in 2000. Despite the tattoo tributes and blood vial necklaces, they broke up after two years of marriage and finalized their split in 2003.

Her next romance would be that rarely discussed relationship with Brad Pitt, the man she met while they were working on Mr. & Mrs. Smith and he was still married to Jennifer Aniston. He announced his split from the Friends star in 2005 months before the movie’s release.

Over the next decade, Jolie and Pitt grew their family. He became the father to her children Maddox, 23, and Zahara, 20—whom she had adopted in 2002 and 2005, respectively—and the couple welcomed daughter Shiloh, 18, in 2006. The following year, Jolie and Pitt adopted son Pax, 21. And in 2008, she gave birth to now-16-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne. After nearly a decade together, Brangelina tied the knot in 2014.

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (2)

But two years later, Jolie announced the end of her marriage to Pitt. The divorce filing came days after an alleged plane incident, with her accusing the actor of being abusive onboard. Pitt has denied the allegations, and no charges were filed against him. The Department of Children and Family Services in Los Angeles County and the FBI also closed their investigations into the accusations.

While Jolie and Pitt were officially declared single in 2019, their legal battle—including over custody of their children and their French winery Château Miraval—continued. It wouldn’t be until 2024 that they would reach a divorce settlement.

The rise and fall of Pitt and Jolie’s romance was tabloid fodder. However, the Gia alum has made it clear she doesn’t read what the internet says about her life.

“I’ve just been around so long,” she told WSJ. Magazine, “and there’s been everything said.”

In the eight years since her divorce filing from Pitt, Jolie has starred in seven films. While this is certainly no small feat, it’s a total that’s less than the three to five movies she’d release in a single year during the ‘90s and early aughts.

As for the reason Jolie stepped back from the spotlight? "We had to heal," she told WSJ. Magazine, referencing her and her children without going into specifics. "There are things we needed to heal from."

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (3)

Maria marks the first starring role for Jolie in three years—with her last one being 2021’s Eternals (though she also directed 2024’s Without Blood). She attributes her return to the front of the camera to where her children are in life.

"They’re a bit older, getting more independent," she noted to The Hollywood Reporter in August. "I’m less needed and so able to go away for different periods of time. And they’re old enough to join me at work. It’s a new season in our lives. I’m very excited for them to be coming into their own more and more every day."

And they did join her at work during the filming of Maria, with Maddox and Pax serving as production assistants. However, this may not come as a surprise as Jolie has collaborated with her children on other projects in the past—including working with Vivienne to produce the Broadway adaptation of The Outsiders that debuted in 2024.

While the A-lister continues to stay busy in Hollywood—with her confirming to WSJ. Magazine a third Maleficent movie is in the works—she’d like to one day move away from Los Angeles.

“I am here because I have to be here from a divorce, but as soon as they’re 18, I’ll be able to leave,” she told The Hollywood Reporter (the twins reach that milestone in July 2026). “When you have a big family, you want them to have privacy, peace, safety. I have a house now to raise my children, but sometimes this place can be…that humanity that I found across the world is not what I grew up with here."

When she actually leaves L.A., she continued, "I’ll spend a lot of time in Cambodia. I’ll spend time visiting my family members wherever they may be in the world.”

But no matter where Jolie goes or what other careers she may pursue—she’s also a pilot, founder of the fashion brand Atelier Jolie and a humanitarian—she knows that being a mom will always be the role she loves most.

"It’s my happiness,” she told Good Morning America in November. "You can take everything else away from me. Nothing else matters."

To learn more about her family, keep reading.

Maddox

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (4)

Pax

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (5)

Zahara

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (6)

Shiloh

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (7)

Knox

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (8)

Vivienne

Inside Angelina Jolie's Return to Hollywood After Taking Time to Heal (9)

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