Angelina Jolie keeps swimming in dangerous territories these days, in terms of her public image. Not too long ago, she was caught up in a very messy divorce from her husband, Brad Pitt and that’s all one would see in the headlines. Finally, the actor decided to open up about the bitter divorce in an exclusive story with Vanity Fair.
Angelina Jolie keeps swimming in dangerous territories these days, in terms of her public image. Not too long ago, she was caught up in a very messy divorce from her husband, Brad Pitt and that’s all one would see in the headlines. Finally, the actor decided to open up about the bitter divorce in an exclusive story with Vanity Fair.
However, what really caught everyone’s attention was a paragraph that described how Jolie’s casting staff cruelly auditioned orphaned children from Cambodia for her upcoming Netflix film, First They Killed My Father. According to the Vanity Fair cover story, the casting directors for the film placed money in front of children from “orphanages, circuses and slum schools,” then asked them what they needed. The money was then taken away to provoke a reaction.
Angelina Jolie’s Netflix film is adapted from Loung Ung’s memoir, First They Killed My Father.
All hell broke loose at this revelation, especially since Jolie is very well known for all her humanitarian work around the world. Jolie responded to the article by fiercely denying the allegations that her staff played any cruel tricks on the children. “I am upset that a pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film, has been written about as if it was a real scenario,” said a statement issued by Jolie. “The suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting,” Jolie said. “I would be outraged myself if this had happened.”
Rithy Panh, a Cambodian filmmaker and producer on the film, supported Jolie by saying that the audition was being “grossly mischaracterized”.
“Because so many children were involved in the production, Angelina and I took the greatest care to ensure their welfare was protected,” she claimed.
However, Vanity Fair is sticking by its original version of the story. They responded to Jolie’s comments by releasing a transcript of the original interview so that readers can see what Jolie told its writer, Evgenia Peretz.
“After reviewing the audiotape, V.F. stands by Peretz’s story as published,” the magazine concluded.
The film, First They Killed My Father, was directed by Jolie and is based on a true-life account of a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide. It is told through the eyes of a child.
