‘I'M NOT GOOD AT SITTING STILL'

Angie reflects on lockdown’s challenges and healing after her split with Brad

- NICI DE WET

A PICKET-FENCE suburban lifestyle was never something she aspired to – give her a plane and a mission to a far-flung country and she’d be there, usually with her six kids in tow.

But the pandemic has put a spanner in the works and Angelina Jolie is finding herself in the same position as the rest of us: stuck at home.

No travel. No holidays. Home-schooling. Finding ways to entertain the kids. And for Angie, who seemed to spend more time in airports than anywhere else, it’s been tough.

“I was never good at sitting still,” the actress and director tells British Vogue magazine in a new interview. “Even though I wanted to have many children and be a mom, I always imagined it kind of like [renowned British primatologist] Jane Goodall, travelling in the middle of the jungle somewhere.

“I feel as if I’m lacking in all the skills to be a traditional stay-at-home mom.”

Angie (45) and the kids – Maddox (19), Pax (17), Zahara (16), Shiloh (14) and twins Knox and Vivienne (12) – have been based in the Los Angeles suburb of Los Feliz since the start of the pandemic.

Of course, when your mom is worth an estimated $120 million (R1,8 billion), home is a rather magnificent affair. Chez Angelina is a 1913 mansion reminiscent of a bygone Hollywood era, tucked away in a quiet corner of the exclusive LA suburb where neighbours are invisible and birdsong drowns out the distant sound of traffic.

Vogue recently did a shoot on Angie’s property that shows sprawling lawns, billowing white curtains out of wide-open doors on wrap-around verandas and the Oscar winner sitting down to an al-fresco meal with Zahara and the twins.