Angelina Jolie Says at 49 She Embraces Feeling "Like an Older Woman Now"

Actress and philanthropist Angelina Jolie is opening up about her age and how she's feeling as she nears 50.

While attending the 2024 Telluride Film Festival, Jolie, 49, spoke to IndieWire about her portrayal of opera singer Maria Callas in her latest biopic film Maria, and how the actress' taste in music has changed as she has grown older and has experienced her own personal pain and heartbreak.

"I’m 49. I do feel like an older woman now and I embrace that," the actress told the publication. "When I was younger, there were certain pieces of music and certain sounds that matched what I was feeling: I was falling in love, or I was curious about this, or whatever I was going through.

"There is nothing that meets what you’re feeling like opera," she continued. "(Some songs) are so beautiful, so full of hope and so full of yearning. Opera is bigger. It is bigger than we allow ourselves to feel in every moment."

Jolie also opened up about Callas and how her art was an exploration of her pain—something the actress said she felt she understood.

"Discovering, really listening to opera...it's such a complete feeling of being so open and human, and the totality of so much of the tragedies that she lived or played or felt or performed," the actress explained. "Most people carry a great deal of pain. And so much of her art was the exploration of depth of emotion that she was able to connect to because she carried quite a lot.

"So I would never pretend to understand her completely," she added, "but I’m not sure it was an unhappiness as much as it was a relationship to deeply feeling life and tragedy."

While appearing at this year's Venice Film Festival, Jolie spoke somewhat candidly about her own pain and heartache, seemingly alluding to her ongoing divorce from actor Brad Pitt.

"There’s a lot I won’t say in this room that you probably know and assume," the actress said during a press conference on Thursday, Aug. 29, and after being asked what she had most in common with Callas.

"I related to the part of her that is extremely soft and didn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was and as emotionally open as she truly was," Jolie continued, as reported by People. "I think I share her vulnerability more than anything."

In a 2021 interview with British Vogue, Jolie discussed her age and how she was actually looking forward to turning 50.

"I do like being older. I feel much more comfortable in my 40s than I did when I was younger," she told the publication at the time. "Maybe because my mom didn’t live very long, so there’s something about age that feels like a victory instead of a sadness for me.

"I’m looking forward to my 50s," she added. "I feel that I’m gonna hit my stride in my 50s."