Inside Angelina Jolie’s comeback plan as she prepares to make Hollywood return after getting her ‘fighting spirit’ back, taking a swipe at Brad Pitt and reclaiming her power after years of feeling ‘broken’

He was once a blockbuster actor, producing several blockbusters a year.

But in recent years, Angelina Jolie has faded away from the spotlight, retreating from the public eye to focus on family and releasing only one film in the last five years.

While she temporarily returned to showbiz with the release of Maria, the biopic about Italian opera singer Maria Callas, in 2024, she has now made it clear that she is back for good.

Angelina is currently on the promotional trail for Couture, where she plays an American filmmaker who learns she has breast cancer while in Paris for Fashion Week.

The project is one that Angelina holds close to her heart after her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of breast cancer at the age of 56 and Angelina underwent preventative double mastectomy surgery in 2013.

It’s a role that sees Angelina revisiting past trauma and pouring her pain into her performance, and in doing so, she’s been incredibly open about her personal growth and how she’s found herself in recent years.

In Couture, Angelina plays a filmmaker who learns she has breast cancer while in Paris for Fashion Week. This is a role where Angelina revisits past trauma and pain

Angelina felt a great responsibility in taking on the role, explaining: ‘I think about my mother often and how wonderful this movie will be for her as she goes through this.’

This also caused Angelina to reconsider the mastectomy she had undergone after learning that the mutation in the BRCA1 gene gave her an estimated 87 percent risk of breast cancer and 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.

While filming a scene where operating lines are inserted into his chest by an oncologist, he told Reuters: ‘It felt like a strange moment to have Hollywood in my hospital room.

‘I’m here, you know, in my dress, getting my injections, doing everything I do, but now we’re sharing it. And so I felt very vulnerable.

‘I think what we found in doing this, and hopefully what the audience will feel, is that we are connected. We are connected as humans and we are all going through things… And it is very necessary to push us all to be human.’

Continuing to promote Couture, Angelina also revealed that there has been a change in her mentality in recent years.

Discussing her return to acting, Angelina revealed that she almost quit the profession before ending her marriage to Brad Pitt in 2016.

‘I kind of quit acting before the divorce. “I was focusing on directing and thought I would do my international work,” he told Variety.

‘But suddenly the only way to stay home more and be away for short periods of time or make a good amount of money was to go back to acting.

‘I was only taking things that were short or close, or that I could take [my children].’

While on the promotional trail, Angelina lashed out at ex-husband Brad Pitt (filmed in 2014) and revealed he almost quit acting before ending their marriage in 2016.

It took a harsh look at Brad’s estranged relationship with his six children, who have all dropped the Pitt surname (a photo taken in 2019 with Knox, Vivienne, Pax, Shiloh, Zahara and Maddox)

She later lashed out at her ex-husband and his estranged relationship with their six children, all of whom had dropped the Pitt surname.

Angelina and Brad have three biological children: 20-year-old Shiloh and 17-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne. They are also parents to Maddox, 24, Pax, 22, and Zahara, 21, through adoption.

Talking about his return to acting, he revealed that his ‘fighting spirit’ has finally returned and he has his children to thank for that, boasting that his children ‘still love him’. [her]That says a lot.”

The remarks appeared to be a dig at Brad, 62, who has had little to no contact with his children in recent years due to claims that Angelina has become ‘alienated from her parents’.

‘I think my fighting spirit has finally returned. ‘I lost it for a while,’ Angelina explained.

‘I’ve had a bit of a downer and it’s coming back, largely thanks to my children, who are now grown up and encouraging it.’

The Oscar-winning actress then shared what her now almost adult children “want” for her.

‘Almost all of my kids are 18 and now they want to see me travel the world, they want me to go out and do things.

‘They know me better than anyone else and they still like me, which says a lot.’

He added that his children were ‘very encouraging of me to go back to parts of myself that maybe I didn’t feel free to do’.

Although Angelina has officially separated from her husband, the couple is still battling it out in court over French winery Château Miraval.

Last week, Brad scored a big legal win that allowed him to come face to face with vodka billionaire Yuri Shefler, who bought Jolie’s stake in the vineyard.

The California Supreme Court granted the F1 star’s request to remove members of the Stoli Group led by Shefler, according to a June 17 court filing obtained by People.

But Angelina’s lawyers insisted Brad’s latest legal wins had ‘no impact on the merits of the case and certainly no impact on Ms Jolie’s case’.

They added: ‘At this point Ms Jolie is looking forward to winning the case at next year’s hearing so the family can finally focus their energies on healing and moving on.’

Angelina has hinted she’s ready to date again after her divorce after her new film changed her perspective on romance (filmed with on-screen love interest Louis Garrel)

When it comes to moving on, Angelina hinted that she’s ready to date again after her divorce.

She told Yahoo Entertainment: ‘Honestly, I haven’t dated anyone since my divorce ten years ago.

‘So if I focus on my children and my family, it occurs to me that this aspect of me is not central in my life.’

Angelina changed her perspective with her role in Couture, where her character has a daughter and is dating.

She thought: ‘It took me a second to say that she too can love her daughter, that she can devote herself to her daughter, and that she may need that as a woman, and that she can accept that as a woman.’