Inside Angelina Jolie's comeback plan as she prepares to make Hollywood return after getting her 'fighting spirit' back, taking a swipe at Brad Pitt and reclaiming her power after years of feeling 'broken'

She was once a box office stalwart, taking on several blockbusters a year. 

Yet in recent years, has faded from the limelight, withdrawing from the public eye to focus on family and only releasing one film in the last five years. 

While she tentatively dipped her toe back into showbusinesses in 2024 with the release of Maria, a biopic about Italian opera singer Maria Callas, she has now made it clear that she's back for good. 

Angelina is currently on the promo trail for Couture, where she stars as an American filmmaker who learns she has breast cancer while in Paris for Fashion Week. 

The project is one that Angelina holds close to her heart, after her mother Marcheline Bertrand died of breast at the age ​of 56, while Angelina underwent a preventative double mastectomy in 2013.

It's a role that has seen Angelina revisit past trauma and pour her pain into performance, and in doing so she has been incredibly open about her personal development and how she's found herself in recent years. 

Angelina felt immense responsibility taking on the role, as she explained: 'I thought often of ⁠my mother and how much I think this film would have been wonderful for ​her when she was going through this.'

It also made Angelina revisit her mastectomy surgery, which she underwent after learning the mutation in her BRCA1 gene gave her an estimated 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer.

Reflecting on filming a scene in which operation lines were placed on her chest by ‌an ⁠oncologist, she told Reuters: 'It felt a strange moment to have Hollywood in my hospital room. 

'Here I am, you know, in my gown, getting my needles, doing all the stuff that I do, but now we are sharing it. And so, it felt very vulnerable. 

'I think what we found in doing this, and hopefully what the audience will feel, is that we're ⁠connected. We're connected as human beings, and we ​all go through something... And it's very necessary to pull us all through being human'.

While on the promotional trail for Couture, Angelina has also opened up about a change to her mindset in recent years. 

Discussing her return to acting, Angelina revealed that she had practically quit the craft prior to ending her marriage to Brad Pitt in 2016.

'I had kind of quit acting before my divorce. I was focusing on directing, and I thought I'd be doing my international work,' she told Variety.

'But then suddenly the only way to be home more and for short periods of time being away or to make a good amount of money, was to go back to acting.

'I was only taking things that were short or close by or I could take [my children].' 

Angelina has hinted that she's ready to start dating again after divorce after her new film changed her perspective on romance (pictured with on-screen love interest Louis Garrel)