Angelina Jolie has shared some very candid cancer advice while reflecting on her late mother in an emotional comment.
The 50-year-old Hollywood A-lister, who is also well-known for her extensive humanitarian work, opened up about losing her mum, Marcheline Bertrand, to breast and ovarian cancer.
Speaking during a Q&A for her new film, Couture - a plot which follows Jolie playing a filmmaker named Maxine taking a job in the Paris fashion industry amid a cancer diagnosis - the Girl, Interrupted star could be seen getting teary-eyed when asked for advice from a fan 'to anyone who recently lost someone'.
Jolie, who lost her mother aged 56 in 2007 after being diagnosed with cancer for almost eight years, took a moment to compose herself before responding: "I'm very sorry for your loss."
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She continued: "One thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer… we'd had a dinner and people were asking her how she was doing. She said, 'All people ever ask me about is cancer.'
"I would say, if you know someone who's going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well. They're a whole person. And they're still living."
The actress went on to explain how Couture was able to accurately capture this, giving her character an identity outside of her cancer diagnosis.
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Jolie added: "What I really love is that there's often films that deal with cancer that become about the cancer, and the life becomes defined by the illness, instead of who is this life?
"Who is Maxine? Maxine through it isn't just this. She's a mother, she's an artist, she's sexual, all of these things I thought were really important to show, and to live forward while we're here.
"Try to live as much as we can."
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Couture premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday (7 September).
"I felt very vulnerable," Jolie, who underwent a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 because she carried the BRCA1 gene, said during an interview with Variety at the festival.
She also told the outlet that she sought comfort on set by wearing one of her late mother’s necklaces onscreen.
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"I feel like it’s such a personal film," the mother-of-six added. "It felt so private that in my mind, it’s probably the one film that doesn’t feel like a film."
While acknowledging she knew the film would 'bring up many personal things', Jolie explained: "But I have always found the heaviest films tend to have the most loving sets. There’s something quite comforting about having real conversations and having real feelings with a shared community.
"It was quite healing in many ways because you look at the other faces of the people on the set, because one in three people have cancer, and most everybody’s been in a hospital room with somebody they’ve loved. Everybody on set has lost someone they’ve loved."
She resolved: "You recognise that life is fragile and time goes quickly, and people pass away that we can’t imagine the world could exist without... It’s hard not to feel very close to a crew and other actors in this kind of a piece."
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If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact Macmillan’s Cancer Support Line on 0808 808 00 00, 8am–8pm seven days a week.
Topics: Cancer, Celebrity, Health, Angelina Jolie, TV And Film
Rhiannon Ingle