Quarantine for a single parent with a half-dozen kids at home might sound overwhelming, but for Angelina Jolie, it’s actually a case of the more the merrier.
The 45-year-old is spending her time at home amid the coronavirus pandemic with all six of her children — Maddox, 19, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 12 — and in recent interviews, she’s stressed how thankful she is to have them all on hand.
“They’re all together and it's a nice big bunch, so everybody's helping each other out,” Jolie told "Extra." “We're lucky.”
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Especially so, since her oldest son, Maddox, had been attending university in South Korea before the pandemic.
“He had to stay back from Korea,” Jolie said. Like many students, even though Maddox is home, he’s still taking classes. But in his case, the time zone difference makes for unconventional school hours. “He's going online, and so I think he starts at 6 p.m. at night,” the actor continued.
Of course, while Jolie isn’t feeling overwhelmed, she said there’s a bit of chaos around the house with so many of them there — and that suits her just fine.
"You know, I've never been one who valued relaxation," she explained in a chat with E!, and added, "I like chaos."
Because, like it or not, it’s to be expected with so many people — and pets — under one roof.
"I've been on high-level meetings where there's dogs and balls and kids and things," she revealed in the same interview. "You kind of just enjoy being human with everybody else and laughing through it."
She and the kids keep the laughs going with a go-to good time that makes quarantine a little more entertaining —movie night.
"Lots of popcorn,” she said of their regular routine. “And just like really every family, we're just pajamas, robes, snacks."
But that’s not the only way the actor, director and humanitarian has merged movies with family. In fact, she has a new film coming out on Disney+ called “The One and Only Ivan,” and she credits Shiloh with prompting her to work on the project.
“Shiloh, years ago, told me that she had read a book that she loved, and she wanted me to read it," Jolie revealed to "ET."
So she picked up that children’s novel, a bestseller written by K.A. Applegate, that shares the same name as the upcoming movie, too.
"I read it on my own and then we looked at some of it together, and we talked about why she loved it," she said. "Then, I inquired if it was being made. … into a film, and I found out that it was kind of in the works but kind of hadn't (been) figured out."
She helped out with that process and stepped in as a producer and a voice talent for the film that follows a gorilla who spent decades in a cage at a mall.