Angelina Jolie Says “Nothing Else Matters” Except for Motherhood

Angelina Jolie opened up about motherhood and how it’s the most important thing to her.

The actress stopped by Good Morning America to discuss her upcoming film, Maria. While speaking with Michael Strahan, she explained that singing was the priority for Maria Calles, the opera singer she portrays in the biopic, but for her, the center of her life is being a mother.

“It’s my happiness,” Jolie told Strahan. “You can take everything else away from me. Nothing else matters.”

She and ex-husband Brad Pitt share six kids: Maddox, 23, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and Knox and Vivienne, 16-year-old twins.

Her two eldest children did assistant directing work on Maria, which she shared was an “amazing” experience, though none of them want to be in front of the camera at this point in their lives “They’re quite private. Shiloh’s extremely private,” she said. “They weren’t born with privacy, right? So I hope they can have that as they grow.”

In a cover interview with The Hollywood Reporter tied to the Pablo Larraín biopic of the singer, the Eternals star explained that she thinks it was “good for them. Pax tends to do stills and he gets brought in, and Pablo was wonderful and recognized that he was good at it.”

Maria marked Jolie’s first project in a while because she “needed to be home more with my kids,” but now that they’re older and more independent, she felt like she was less needed, so she was able to go away for periods of time to work.

“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,” she added.

The Maleficent star also noted that she’s a mom before anything else and how that weighs in on how she walks the line between being an artist and being outspoken about political issues.

“I’m somebody who has tried to have a better education on foreign policy. I think of the amount of times it’s been summarized, ‘You’re an artist, but you also use your voice,’ you feel like, that’s just being a person,” she said. “I’m trying to understand what is happening within our world, why so many things are the way they are. I’m trying to understand how to best be a guide for my children, to make sure that they are good people. I don’t often feel like I’m doing enough. So when you say, ‘You use your voice,’ I feel like there are so many things I don’t quite know how to do or say at this time.”

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