Angelina Jolie had an emotional moment at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2025 when she teared up while recalling her late mother’s words about cancer. The actress attended the world premiere of Couture, her new film, where she plays a director who learns she has breast cancer, a storyline that closely mirrors her own life experiences.
Angelina Jolie recalls her late mother’s message on cancer at Couture premiere
During the Q&A session, an audience member asked Angelina Jolie to give some advice to the person who had recently lost a close one to cancer. The actress paused and cried a bit before saying, “I’m very sorry.”
She then shared a memory of her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who died of cancer in 2007. “I think I will say that, one thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer, she said to me once, we had had a dinner and people were asking her how she was feeling and what she was doing, and she said, ‘All anybody ever asks me about is cancer.’”
“So I would say, if you know someone who’s going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well. They’re a whole person, and they’re still living,” Jolie added.
This theme is central to Couture, which Angelina Jolie noted strives to show its protagonist, Maxine, as a multifaceted woman. She is a mother, an artist, and a sexual being who is navigating her diagnosis while continuing to live her life fully.
Jolie’s connection to the material is intensely personal. In 2013, she publicly revealed she had undergone a preventive double mastectomy after genetic testing showed she carried the BRCA1 gene, which dramatically increased her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.
She made the decision, she wrote at the time, to reassure her children that they wouldn’t lose her to the disease as they had their grandmother.
Directed by Alice Winocour, Couture also stars Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, and features model Anyier Anei in her acting debut.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on ComingSoon.net.
