Angelina Jolie says she has needed to be with her family more in recent years

Angelina Jolie has said she has “needed to be home more” with her family in recent years.

The Lara Croft star, 49, has six children with Hollywood actor Brad Pitt , from whom she filed for divorce in September 2016.

In May their daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt became the first of their children to request a legal name change.

Jolie spoke about her acting career, and how it seems to have taken a back seat over the past few years, during a press conference for the new biopic Maria at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.

Asked how she is feeling, she said: “I’ve needed to be home more with my family these last years.

“And in that time, I’ve become maybe more grateful to have the opportunity to just be an artist and play and be among all of you, to just be in this creative world that we are all fortunate to be in some way a part of.

“So I’m happy to be here, and I’m grateful.”

In a Vogue interview last year, Jolie, known for starring in Maleficent and Girl, Interrupted, said she started doing less film work “seven years ago, only taking jobs that didn’t require long shoots”.

She now plays the title role in a drama about Maria Callas , which reimagines the singer’s final days in 1970s Paris, exploring the tragic events in the life of one of the world’s best-known sopranos.

Jolie said that she has “relearned” the word diva through Maria Callas, who was known as “La Divina”.

She said: “I think it’s often come with a lot of negative connotations.

“I think I’ve relearned that word through Maria and I have a new relationship to it.

“And I think it is often other people’s perception of a woman that defines sometimes too much who she is, and who she was, or what she intended.

“And I actually think she was one of the hardest working people, who didn’t hurt anybody.”

“I suppose it’s everybody in this room that makes that definition,” she added.

Jolie and Pitt met on the set of action comedy Mr & Mrs Smith and were married in 2014.  The details of their divorce have yet to be finalised.

Pitt is expected to attend the film festival for a movie he stars in called Wolfs.

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