Being Multi-lingual is the trend among the Pitts: and they all crave to outclass one another on who speaks the most languages. This is what Angelina Jolie revealed as a guest editor appearance on BBC Radio 4‘s “Women’s Hour” on Friday, the filmmaker and Oscar-winning actress said her and husband Brad Pitt’s six children have already taken on second – and even third! – languages.
“All the kids are learning different languages,” Angelina said of Maddox, 14, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and 7-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox – also revealing a few of the youngsters’ nicknames.
“I asked them what languages they wanted to learn and Shi is learning Khmai, which is a Cambodian language, Pax is focusing on Vietnamese, Mad has taken to German and Russian, Z is speaking French, Vivienne really wanted to learn Arabic, and Knox is learning sign language,” she explained.
While Angelina’s brood is clearly taking on their mother’s global perspective, they aren’t necessarily looking to follow in her or Brad’s Hollywood footsteps.
“None of my kids want to be actors, thank God,” the 41-year-old said, adding that their artistic curiosity is directed more toward off-camera endeavors.
“They are actually very interested in being musicians,” she added. “I think they like the process of film from the outside. Mad is interested in editing. Pax loves music and deejaying.”
Angelina also spoke at length about her role as a Special Envoy for the United Nations, touching specifically upon the plight facing millions of pregnant refugees across the world and the personal insight she experienced after giving birth to Shiloh in Africa.
“It’s so hard to speak of, it’s the worst possible situation,” she said. “You hope you would have a midwife but many poor people have complications – ones that could be easily solved. I was in Namibia having my daughter, I was in breech and I knew I was in breech because I could have an ultrasound, but many women can’t have one.”
The conversation took an especially emotional turn as she also reflected upon the double mastectomy she had in 2013 after learning she carried the “faulty” BRCA1 gene that poses a high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Her own mother, Marcheline Bertrand, passed away in 2007 following an eight-year battle with the illnesses, and Angelina explained why even having the choice to undergo the preventive operation is something she values deeply.
“When you go through something and you learn about yourself and your body in anything medical, you feel – it really wasn’t a decision,” she said. “It was just, I thought that I had gained information that I wish my mother would have known. I wish she had the option. I wish she had the surgery, in fact, and it might have given her more years with my family.”
Angelina spoke out about the surgery in an open letter to The New York Times, and said the public discourse that followed gives her hope that other women may have been inspired to take a closer look at their own health.
“It means a great deal to me,” Angelina said. “If there is even one woman out there who went and got checked and found that she had cancer or she was positive and she caught something in time, and if in any small way I was a part of that, it makes me very emotional.”
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