Angelina Jolie Reveals The Real Reason Her Daughter Was Cast In Maleficent

The actress dishes about making a movie with daughter Vivienne and why her evil character is just misunderstood

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are two of the most successful actors in Hollywood - so it would make sense that they might want their children to follow in their footsteps.

When news broke that the power couple's 5-year-old daughter Vivienne had been cast in Angie's upcoming film Maleficent, it seemed they were starting to groom their little one for the spotlight.

But that's not necessarily the case.

It turns out Vivienne's casting was more a case of necessity than nepotism.

'We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and I at all,” the mum of six says in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. 'But the other 3- and 4-year-old [actors] wouldn’t come near me. It had to be a child that liked me and wasn’t afraid of my horns and my eyes and my claws. So it had to be Viv.'

Vivienne may not have been scared of her mum, but her older brother was. Angelina says Pax (now 10) did not enjoy seeing her in Maleficent mode one bit.

'When Pax saw me for the first time, he ran away and got upset - and I thought he was kidding, so I was pretending to chase him until I actually found him crying,' she says. 'I had to take off pieces [of the makeup] in front of him to show him it was all fake and not freak out so much.'

The actress, 38, says it was important that her kids really get to know the reasoning behind her character's evil actions. When she first took the villainous role, she had to explain to her kids that Maleficent wasn't all evil - she was just a bit misunderstood.

'I said, "Let me tell you the real story but you can’t tell anybody,"' she says. 'So this was my test too, like any parent. The next day, I heard Shiloh getting into a fight with another kid, defending Maleficent, saying, "You don’t understand her!" They got into a bit of an argument and I thought, that’s the reason to do the film.'

Maleficent hits UK cinemas on 30 May 2014.

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