Angelina Jolie says she embraces feeling ‘like an older woman’ at 49

Angelina Jolie has opened up about how her perspective has changed as she’s gotten older.

The Hollywood star, 49, recently received an eight-minute standing ovation for her performance as Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s biopic about the opera singer’s life. While promoting the movie at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival, Jolie explained to IndieWire how her relationship with music – specifically opera – is different now than it was when she was younger.

“I’m 49. I do feel like an older woman now and I embrace that,” Jolie said on September 2. “When I was younger, there were certain pieces of music and certain sounds that matched what I was feeling: I was falling in love, or I was curious about this, or whatever I was going through.”

The Maleficent actor made similar comments at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, when she shared how her music taste has evolved with her age.

“I was more punk. I loved all music, but I probably listened to The Clash more than most, and as I’ve gotten older, classical music, opera,” she said. “I think there’s something I still love about the same music I did when I was younger. I’ll still listen to The Clash.”

It seems that aging appears to be on Jolie’s mind as her youngest children prepare to turn 18 years old. Jolie shares 16-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox with ex-husband Brad Pitt, as well as sons Maddox, 23, and Pax, 20, and daughters Zahara, 19, and Shiloh, 18. The former couple are in the midst of contentious divorce proceedings concerning child custody and disagreements over their various properties.

Despite growing up in Los Angeles, Jolie revealed that she plans on moving away from Hollywood once her divorce battle is finalized and her twins are of age. “I have to be here from a divorce,” she explained to The Hollywood Reporter on August 30. “But as soon as they’re 18, I’ll be able to leave.”

Jolie shared that she plans on traveling to Cambodia, where she adopted her son Maddox in 2002. “I’ll spend a lot of time in Cambodia,” Jolie explained. “I’ll spend time visiting my family members wherever they may be in the world.”

She continued: “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.”

Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016 after two years of marriage and 12 years together. There’s been much speculation about the Fight Club star’s reported estrangement from his children, which seemed to be prompted by Jolie’s allegations of abuse made in a 2022 cross-complaint filed against Pitt. Representatives for Pitt have since refuted the claims, calling them “completely untrue.”

In May, People reported that Vivienne was listed as Vivienne Jolie, rather than by Jolie-Pitt, in the Playbill program for The Outsiders on Broadway – where she served as producer’s assistant. That same month, Shiloh immediately filed to legally drop her father’s last name upon turning 18. The change was granted in August, allowing her to legally go by Shiloh Jolie rather than Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.

Meanwhile, a viral video previously revealed that Zahara was introduced by her university’s sorority as Zahara Marley Jolie – also excluding her father’s last name.