Angelina Jolie’s daughter had to be brave for Maleficent

Maleficent role was child’s play for Angelina Jolie

If Vivienne Jolie-Pitt grows up to become an actress she can put her first break down to her ability to laugh in the face of a wicked witch.

The five-year-old is the daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt which might help give her career a boost as well, of course and it was mummy’s role in Maleficent that put a smile on her face.

In the film, Angelina gives us the untold back story to the witch who puts a curse on the young Princess Aurora, better known in fairytale folklore as Sleeping Beauty.

Dressed in black, with pencilled in cheekbones and horns coming out of her head, Angelina’s appearance put the wind up most children she came across in rehearsal but not her own.

“We never intended to put our children in films,” the mum-of-six told me when I met her at London’s Corinthia Hotel.

“But the reason we ended up putting Vivienne in was because there’s a scene where Aurora is five and she has to look at me and not see me as a demon.

“And all the little kids who we tried would cry or freeze and they couldn’t do a scene with me. So it genuinely had to be Vivienne.”

But asked if this was the beginning of an acting dynasty, Jolie joked: “God, I hope not!”

Despite being one half of the world’s most photographed couple, Angelina tries to keep her children out of the limelight and give them a normal childhood as much as possible.

“The older ones recently saw Mr and Mrs Smith and I think they thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen,” she said. “Watching your parents battle it out as spies is one strange child fantasy.

“The younger ones love Maleficent’s voice, so they always make me do it at home. Being part of this film really brought out the child in me, .”

Maleficent is a rare acting role for the 38-year-old star these days. It’s her first appearance on screen since The Tourist in 2010.

She voiced a part in two Kung Fu Panda films but her focus has mostly been on a different area of filmmaking.

She directed In the Land of Blood and Honey in 2011 and occupies the same role for Second World War survival drama Unbroken, which is set for release later this year. And, as revealed in The Sunday Post two weeks ago, she is becoming ever more involved in her role as a UN ambassador and as co-head of the Prevent Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, commenting that acting would be taking “more of a back seat.”

“I’ve had a wonderful career and I’m very happy to have had all the opportunities I’ve had,” she expanded.

“I’m sure there will be a few more films but I’m happy I’m able to be selective and have fun with characters like this (Maleficent). I would like to focus more on writing and directing, and above all I would like to do more for the UN and my work with the PSVI.”

The script for Maleficent stood out for Angelina because of its different take on a well-worn story.

“I remember hearing they were going to make a film about Maleficent and I thought: ‘How could you possibly make a film where the central character curses a baby and, in any way, make that appealing?’

“I also thought the original 1959 animated film (with British theatre actress Eleanor Audley voicing the role of Maleficent) was done perfectly. I thought her voice was so elegant and powerful, and as I don’t do theatre I don’t naturally have that voice.

“But when I read the script it gave it a new spin and had been updated to make it more meaningful to give it resonance to today.

“When I was a little girl there weren’t many female characters in fairytales that I admired, the princesses. They weren’t characters I looked up to or identified with.

“As I’ve got older and with kids of my own, I tend to make up my own stories for my children as I don’t like it that there’s always a happy ending in a fairytale, and that there’s good and evil and things are perfect.

“When there’s a good story for children I think there’s a good moral tale that’s what I try to teach my kids and what we tried to do with this film.”