Angelina Jolie Reveals Son Maddox Has Followed in Her Footsteps by Becoming a Trained Pilot

Maddox Jolie-Pitt is going into the family business — and no, not that one.

The 23-year-old son of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt is following in his mother’s footsteps (airstream?) to become a pilot.

“I am a pilot,” Jolie, 49, told Jimmy Fallon on the Dec. 5 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “And my son Maddox is training to be a pilot too. He, actually, he is a pilot now.”

In fact, it was Maddox who first inspired the Maria actress to get in the cockpit. The Oscar winner first started flying in 2004 to impress her then-young son.

“Every time Mad sees a plane, he’s amazed,” Jolie told PEOPLE at the time. “If I could actually fly a plane by the time he’s 4, I’ll be like Superman to him.”

Related: Inside Angelina Jolie's Life as a Pilot: From Being Inspired by Maddox to Owning Her Own Plane

Jolie got her pilot’s license in December 2004 and in early 2005, she bought the single-engine plane, a Cirrus SR22-G2. Jolie kept Maddox close while in the air, too: Her tail number contained the letters “MX” in honor of her son. She trained with an instructor as well as with her then-husband Pitt, 60, while the former couple was living in Canada.

A source told PEOPLE at the time that she was a “completely competent, confident flyer,” and noted that Jolie bonded with other female flyers-to-be at the local hangar. “She just beams in the cockpit,” the source added.

And in 2017, Jolie shared with PEOPLE that Maddox had also begun flying.

“He’s quite capable and always takes me by surprise,” Jolie said of her eldest son at the time. “He’s been practicing flying, then they called me the other day and said, ‘so Mad can go solo,’ and I nearly dropped the phone!”

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As for the rest of her family, Jolie — who also shares Pax, 21, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, Knox, 16, and Vivienne, 16, with Pitt — gave some insight into her children’s attitudes in regards to one day working in the entertainment industry.

“My kids, I think some of them off-camera, behind the scenes, but they really, really want to be – especially Shiloh – they want to be private,” Jolie told Fallon on Dec. 5. “Just private, not photographed, not on the thing. I think, her most of all would like privacy.”

“It just must get so tricky, because everyone’s famous,” Fallon noted.

“But it wasn’t their choice,” the Maleficient star explained. “So some people are more comfortable with public, some people are more comfortable with talk shows.”

Related: Angelina Jolie Says Her Kids Value Their Privacy — and Reveals Which of Her 6 Is ‘Extremely Private’

Jolie herself had an unusual backup career path she considered before going into acting: a funeral director.

“Doesn’t it make sense, though?” she asked, laughing. “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. I could make this better. I could do a thing here. It’s my fallback career.” 

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights (11:35 a.m. ET) on NBC.

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