While promoting her latest film Maria at this year's Venice Film Festival, actress and philanthropist Angelina Jolie seemingly alluded to her personal life, including her ongoing, contentious divorce from actor Brad Pitt.
"There’s a lot I won’t say in this room that you probably know and assume," the actress said during a press conference on Thursday, Aug. 29, and after being asked what she had most in common with real-life opera singer Maria Callas, the subject of the biopic.
"I related to the part of her that is extremely soft and didn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was and as emotionally open as she truly was," Jolie continued, as reported by People. "I think I share her vulnerability more than anything."
Both Pitt and Jolie are attending the 81st Venice International Film Festival this year—Jolie for her biopic Maria, and Pitt for his new movie Wolfs.
Earlier this month, in an interview for Vanity Fair, Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera explained how the two would successfully avoid each other during the screenings, red carpets and photo calls.
"Angelina will be on the first day, on Thursday [Aug.] 29, and she will leave right after with [Maria director] Pablo Larraín to go to Telluride [Film Festival]," Barbera told the publication at the time. "Brad will arrive only on Saturday, to Venice.
"There is no way that they can cross each other at the Lido," Barbera added.
Pitt and Jolie are still in the midst of intense divorce negotiations after the actress filed to end her marriage with her former Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star in 2016.
In 2022, as part of the eight-year divorce proceedings, Jolie filed court paperwork alleging Pitt abused her and her kids in 2016 while on a private plane traveling from France to California, The New York Times reported at the time.
According to the filing, "Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face” and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her." At one point, Jolie alleges Pitt “poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children.”
According to The New York Times, the incident was investigated but federal authorities declined to press criminal charges against Pitt. Days after the plane trip and alleged incident, Jolie filed for divorce.
In response, Anne Kiley, an attorney for Pitt, said the actor "had accepted responsibility for some things in his past, but he would not accept responsibility for the things he did not do."
Recently, the couple's daughter, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, petitioned to change her last name on her 18th birthday, requesting that her father's surname be removed.
Shiloh's decision to remove her father's surname from her last name was reportedly a “significant decision,” and happened after “painful events,” according to a previous report from People.
