Angelina Jolie cried as she recalled her late mother’s struggle with cancer at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
The Oscar winner, 50, stars as a woman diagnosed with the disease just as she arrives at Paris Fashion Week in Couture, which debuted on Sunday.
In a question and answer session following the screening, one person revealed she had recently lost a friend to cancer, and asked the star for advice ‘to anyone who recently lost someone’ to the disease.
In video shared by Entertainment Weekly, the Girl, Interrupted star was seen holding her hand over her mouth as she tried to get hold of herself.
Jolie lost her own mother, Marcheline Bertrand after a decade long battle with breast and ovarian cancer in 2007. She was only 56.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,” Jolie said, dabbing her eyes while director Alice Winecour and co-star Anyier Anei comforted her.
Angelina Jolie cried as she recalled her late mother’s struggle with cancer at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday; seen in 2003 in a stock photo
Jolie lost her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, in 2007 after a decade long battle with ovarian and breast cancer. She was only 56; Pictured in Los Angeles in July 2001
‘One thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer … we’d had a dinner and people were asking her how she was doing. She said, “All people ever ask me about is cancer.”‘
‘I would say, if you know someone who’s going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well. They’re a whole person. And they’re still living.’
In 2010, after completing her family, the mother of six, underwent a complete hysterectomy as a precaution against ovarian cancer.
She shares Maddox, 24, Pax, 21, Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 19, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 17, with ex-husband Brad Pitt, 61.
After testing positive for a mutation on the BRCA1 gene, which indicated a genetic link to breast cancer, the Eternals actress underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction as a precaution in 2013
In an essay for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, one the members of her surgical team commended the actress for her example in getting tested and making a decision that was right for her.
‘I have personally seen women whose lives were likely saved as a result of the public awareness that has resulted from the “Angelina Jolie effect,”‘ wrote Dr. Jay Orringer in 2018.
Jolie opened up about her mother in February at the Santa Barbara Film Festival where she received the Maltin Modern Master Award for her efforts to change the movie industry through significant contributions and impact.
The Oscar winner, 50, stars as a woman diagnosed with the disease just as she arrives at Paris Fashion Week in her new film, Couture
During a Q&A after the screening an audience member whose friend recently died asked for advice ‘to anyone who recently lost someone to cancer’
Accepting the honor, she spoke of her mother, who walked away from acting in the early 1980s.
‘I think of my mother,’ Jolie said. ‘She had to give up her dreams of a creative life but she embraced that side of mine,’ via video on X from The Hollywood Reporter.
The Maleficent star shared that when Bertrand was alive, she would write letters to Jolie’s characters.
‘Dear Gia, Dear Lisa Rowe, Dear Lara Croft’ she said referring to some of her earliest characters including the Girl, Interrupted character for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
‘And for the last 16 years, I haven’t had those letters.’
Speaking of her portrayal of opera great Maria Callas in Maria, the star explained, ‘I try to imagine sometimes what she would write, and she would probably have told Maria that she loved her because Maria had many things but she never had a mother’s love.’
As her voice cracked, the emotional actress admitted, ‘I would be absolutely nothing without mine. She passed away many years ago at this time of year, so it’s always this weather that reminds me of her.’
She continued, ‘That feeling, that sensibility that makes that actually hard for me is part of what is my work, and what connects me and many artists to their work, and I know I’m not alone in this.’
A release date for Couture has not been announced.
