Angelina Jolie Learned ‘More’ About Daughter Vivienne Producing ‘The Outsiders’ Musical Together
Angelina Jolie gained new insight into her daughter Vivienne while collaborating with her on the Broadway musical The Outsiders.
Jolie, 49, who is a producer on the show, got involved after going to see an earlier version of the production with Vivienne, 15, who is now a producer’s assistant.
“As a mother, as a person, I was watching it, but I was really watching the effect it was having on my young daughter and what she was telling me about herself, and I was learning what about it was important to her and why it connected so deeply to her,” Jolie said during a Monday, June 10, interview with Deadline.
“It was a very different experience of understanding, of how this is having a significant effect on her as a young person right now, and she’s communicating something to me,” she continued. “That is the power of this material, which was in really good shape even by then. And then I had the privilege of watching everyone work over this last year to make it into what it is, and Vivienne has been there the whole way.”
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Jolie recalled that Vivienne had been to see The Outsiders at La Jolla Playhouse in California “about five times” before she asked her mom to tag along.
“Viv loves theater. She appreciates all theater but she certainly knows what she feels close to and what she responds to,” she said.
While Jolie noted it was “hard” for her to identify why the musical resonated with Vivienne “because she’s a complex young woman,” she guessed it has something to do with the show’s deep themes.
“I think it’s just that it’s very deep, and it’s honest, and it doesn’t shy away from real feelings and real discussion and real pain,” she said. “I think maybe every person that watches it might identify slightly more with one character or another, but what I think you see through it all is there is pain in life, right? There is fear. There is, ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where do I belong?’ There is, ‘Why are these people marginalized and harmed more than others? Why do these people kill themselves? What is it we’re facing in life?’ I think a lot of young people, especially today, these are very difficult times, and they want to have that real discussion, and they want to know what helps you get through life.”
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The Outsiders has been nominated for 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (Brody Grant) and Best Direction of a Musical (Danya Taymor). The musical is based upon S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel of the same name, which inspired the 1983 film.
Jolie recalled being contacted by the show’s producers and asked to share her thoughts on the musical adaptation when she first saw it.
‘They said, ‘What did you like?’ So, Viv and I sat together and we wrote down what we liked, what we were curious about. And they responded to our notes,” she recalled. “For me, it was a moment to learn more about Viv, not me thinking of becoming a producer.”
Jolie shares Vivienne, Maddox, 22, Pax, 20 Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and Knox, 15, with ex-husband Brad Pitt. The exes split in 2016 after two years of marriage and more than a decade together. They were declared legally single in 2019.
Last month, Shiloh filed paperwork to legally drop her father’s last name so she could go by Shiloh Jolie. The request, which comes amid Jolie and Pitt’s contentious legal battle over the French winery they previously owned together, has not yet been approved.
