Angelina Jolie has had a tumultuous relationship with her father, actor Jon Voight. Currently, it seems like father-daughter duo has reconnected once again.
“Jon and I have gotten to know each other — through grandchildren now — [and] we’re finding a new relationship.”
The 42-year-old actress, who is promoting her fourth directorial effort, First They Killed My Father , and revealed to Scott Feinberg of the Hollywood Reporter ‘s Awards Chatter podcast that she has been able to bond with her father through art.
“We’ve had some difficulties, [but] through art we’ve been able to talk. It’s the common language.”
John Voight separated from Jolie’s mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, in 1978. Jolie revealed that she fell into acting to help her late mother Marcheline Bertrand pay the bills.
Angelina Jolie and John Voight first became estranged in 2002, shortly after Voight and Jolie starred together as father and daughter in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Voight gave an interview to Access Hollywood and claimed that Jolie had “serious mental problems.”
Angelina responded to her father’s remarks by legally dropping “Voight” from her name, though she had never used it professionally. Angelina explained, “I wanted to have my own identity — I didn’t want to walk into a room as ‘Jon’s daughter.’”
Following the 2007 death of Jolie’s mother who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Jolie and Voight decided it was time to build a relationship.
For now, though, Jolie and her famously conservative dad seem to have figured out the secret of keeping the peace.
“We don’t really talk politics well… We talk art very well.”
John Voight On Daughter Angelina Jolie Being An Alleged Victim Of Harvey Weinstein
This week, Jon Voight acknowledged that until Angelina Jolie publicly came forward, he had no idea that daughter was an alleged victim of Harvey Weinstein in the 1990s.
When asked by a paparazzo at LAX asked the actor had known about his daughter’s troubling encounter with Weinstein , to which Voight replied, “No, I did not.”
Vought declined to comment further except to add, “Angie’s spoken about that and that’s it,” according to the Daily Mail .
Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight bury the hatchet https://t.co/nmuiGxt0pF pic.twitter.com/Rd9cKR109G
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 8, 2017
Jolie revealed to the New York Times in October that she had a “bad experience” with Weinstein in the late 1990s. At the time, she was in her early 20s, and Weinstein was an executive producer on her 1998 film, Playing By Heart .
“I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did.”
Jolie did not elaborate on what transpired between her and Harvey.
Angelina Jolie admits she fell into acting to pay her mother’s bills https://t.co/9vNSTvrQdZ pic.twitter.com/Ov1GivAIps
— Eyewitness News (@ewnupdates) December 8, 2017
The Oscar winner admitted that she had never truly been comfortable in front of the camera despite being the child of two performers.
“I think, when I started acting, it was a good means to an end. It was a job, and I wanted to help my mom with bills. It was a creative job, something where you get to explore different times in history, different people, different sides of yourself, learn different skills, so it’s a wonderful job to have as you grow and as you learn as a person. But you also are not those people.”
Voight is now an active part of her and his grandchildren’s lives. Jolie even allowed a photo op with the kids at one of her recent premieres.
