Angelina Jolie, 35-year-old mother of six and star of this summer's upcoming action thriller Salt (in theaters July 23), is opening up in a new Vanity Fair cover story about her career and family, including Brad Pitt and the distinct personalities of their six children -- beginning with their oldest child, 8-year-old Maddox Jolie Pitt.
"Mad's a real intellectual, which I can take no credit for genetically," Jolie tells VF about her son, adopted in 2002. "He's great at school, great at history. He feels like he could be a writer or travel the world and learn about places and things." She adds, "Zahara's got an extraordinary voice and is just so elegant and well spoken. Shiloh's hysterically funny, one of the goofiest, most playful people you'll ever meet. Knox and Viv are classic boy and girl. She's really female. And he's really a little dude."
And as for her playful daughter Shiloh's boyish attire, often scrutinized in the press, Mom completely agrees that the 4-year-old tomboy dresses "like a little dude. Shiloh, we feel, has Montenegro style. It's how people dress there. She likes tracksuits, she likes [regular] suits. She likes to dress like a boy. She wants to be a boy. So we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys' everything. She thinks she's one of the brothers."
"I have a happy home," she adds, expressing contentment about the non-Hollywood side of her life. "I got back from work last night, and everybody was playing music and dancing and I suddenly found myself dancing around with a bunch of little fun crazy people."
Jolie confirms she's not pregnant, but on the possibility of expanding their clan, she says, "We're not opposed to it. But we want to make sure we can give everybody special time. They're kids now, and can play together, but they're going to need a lot more talking in the middle of the night, like I did with my mom for hours. We want to make sure we don't build a family so big that we don't have absolutely enough time to raise them each really well."
And when it comes to her coparenting partner, the happy mom boasts the interview that Brad is "such an artist" -- and says she never hated his infamous beard! ("I love Brad in every state.") She insists she's not "against getting married," but says the kids are their biggest priority. "Children are clearly a commitment, a bigger commitment (than marriage.) It's for life."
But will the two movie stars work together onscreen again? "I'd love to. We've talked about it. We'd have to figure out who's going to watch the kids, but it's really about finding the right thing, because we've looked. When you're a couple, there are certain things people don't want to see you do. It becomes too indulgent, too personal. I don't think people want to see people who are really together intimate onscreen. Maybe we have to play bad guys that try to kill each other, so it's just fun and aggressive, not dealing with some man-woman deal."
Movie producers had better hurry if they want to bring a Mr. & Mrs. Smith sequel to life, because Jolie hints that retirement may be looming: "(Acting is) not the most important thing....Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful....it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury. Look, I’m at work today in the middle of Venice (on the set of the upcoming film The Tourist.) But I don’t think I’ll do it much longer."
