Sep 7, 2025 5:19 PM EDT
Angelina Jolie delivered one of the most poignant moments at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, opening up about cancer, resilience and rediscovering the will to live in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.
While promoting her new drama, Couture, the actress reflected on how illness is often portrayed on screen and shared how the film resonates with her own health journey.
“I think for anybody watching, whether you dealt with cancer or anything in your life, you’ve had this moment, where you don’t know if your life is now going to stop, and you feel like it’s going to stop, and you feel like it’s going to be over,” Jolie admitted in the interview.
In May 2013, Jolie revealed in an op-ed she wrote for the New York Times that she underwent a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carries the BRCA1 gene, which increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Her mom passed away at 56 years old after fighting cancer for a decade.
“In many films, they treat things like this, and that becomes the film, right? It becomes about the end,” Jolie said. “A lot of people with cancer have said, ‘I feel that’s all people ask me about, right?’”
In Couture, the 50-year-old actress plays Maxine Walker, a director of low-budget horror movies who’s hired to shoot a short film for a French fashion house, but finds out during the trip that she has breast cancer. Directed by Alice Winocour and also starring Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf and Garance Marillier, the film explores how the characters’ stories intersect as they each seek to overcome challenges and the drama echoes Jolie’s own health journey.
“It’s not the end, and that’s why this [film] is so important to me. I think it helped me remind myself and hopefully remind others that this is when you can feel the most alive and you realize you can confront the fragility and also fall in love with life again and decide to live through it,” Jolie says at the end of the clip. “None of us know how long we’re going to be here.”
The movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday.
About the Author
Liz Lindain
Entertainment Journalist, Parade Magazine
Liz Lindain covers entertainment and pop culture for Parade Magazine. She holds a bachelor’s degree in media studies & communications from New York University and has years of experience covering the arts, contributing hundreds of stories across various outlets.
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