Angelina Jolie's New Role Is Personal

Angelina Jolie says a side of her that had gone quiet is making itself heard again. While promoting her new film Couture, the 49-year-old actor and director sat down with Variety and reflected on the period after her split from Brad Pitt, saying, "I think my fighting spirit is finally back. I lost it for a bit. I got kind of taken down a little bit and it's coming back in large part thanks to my children, who are now older, and encouraging it."

Jolie stars in Couture as an American filmmaker and single mother suffering through a divorce and breast cancer diagnosis—material that echoes aspects of her own life. Though she's never had breast cancer, she previously revealed she chose a preventive double mastectomy due to the BRCA1 gene. Director Alice Winocour says she wrote the role for Jolie, who has the perfect "punk energy."

Jolie notes that she had largely stepped away from acting before her divorce, focusing on directing and humanitarian work. But now that her kids are older (the youngest is 17), "they want me to get out and do things," she says. And "I think I'm more punk now." She adds Couture, a French- and English-language drama, is "about a renewed desire to live life until your last breath, which particularly resonates with me at this time in my life," per People. The film arrives in theaters June 26.