Angelina Jolie has Broadway to thank for her tight bond with her daughter Vivienne.
Last year, the Hollywood icon, 49, made quite a career move when she joined the now Tony-winning musical, The Outsiders, as a producer after her 15-year-old gushed to her mom over how much she loved the show.
"My daughter Viv loves theater. She appreciates all theater, but she certainly knows what she feels close to and what she responds to," Jolie explained in a recent interview. "She went to see The Outsiders at La Jolla [Playhouse] about five times and was telling me about it, and I had read the book, and I'd seen the film years ago."
After her teenager asked her to see the original version of the production with her, the Salt actress was moved by the Danya Taymor-directed piece and decided to join the team when it moved to Broadway.
"Danya speaks of how important it is to teenagers, how it was written by somebody who’s the age of my daughter, right? So, really, as a mother, as a person, I was watching it, but I was really watching the effect it was having on my young daughter and what she was telling me about herself, and I was learning what about it was important to her and why it connected so deeply to her," Jolie said of working on the musical.
"So, it was a very different experience of understanding, of how this is having a significant effect on her as a young person right now, and she's communicating something to me, and that is the power of this material, which was in really good shape even by then," she continued. "And then I had the privilege of watching everyone work over this last year to make it into what it is, and Vivienne has been there the whole way."
The Outsiders — which scored 12 Tony nominations and won four — is the musical adaptation of the film and the 1967 novel by S. E. Hinton. The story follows a group of young boys in a period of self-discovery in Oklahoma.
Jolie, who also shares Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 17 and Knox, 15, with ex Brad Pitt, has never shied away from emphasizing how much her life revolves around her kids. “My entire life changed. Having children saved me — and taught me to be in this world differently," she said in a 2023 interview.
"I think, recently, I would’ve gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them,” she added. “They’re better than me, because you want your children to be. Of course I’m the mother, and hopefully that safe place for them and that stability. But I’m also the one that they laugh at — and I see them taking over so many different aspects of our family."
Deadline conducted the interview with Jolie.
