Angelina: I only went into acting to please mother

ANGELINA Jolie ‘never really thought’ she could be anything other than an actress.

The Maleficent star – who is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and the late Marcheline Bertrand – was encouraged to follow in her parents’ footsteps by her mother.

And one of the reasons she pursued the career was she knew how happy it would make her mother.

‘I grew up around film and in a town where film was so important that it’s all anyone talked about. It was the thing to be,’ said Jolie, pictured left with her late mother. ‘When I was growing up, I remember my mom telling me how she wanted to be an actress and my grandmother wanted to be an actress and she was so excited that I could be an actress.’

She added: ‘I never thought I could be anything else and I never really questioned it. I did start to get into acting and I did it partially because it was something to do with my mom and it made her so happy,’ she said.

Jolie, 42, began her career as a model and appeared in music videos. Her first big film role was in 1995’s Hackers. When she starred as the real-life drug-addicted Vogue model Gia Carangi for a HBO movie, her career took off. Angelina won her Oscar for 1999’s drama Girl Interrupted with Winona Ryder.

The actress – who has kids Maddox, 16, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 11, and nine-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne with estranged husband Brad Pitt – said her career motivation changed when her mother died in 2007.

Speaking at the Toronto International Film Festival, she said: ‘I realised that it was something I was doing for her and it changed a bit. Now I do it for my kids. And I do love it!’