Angelina Jolie Gives 'Maleficent' Interview About Daughter Vivienne Amid New Photos

Angelina Jolie’s spooky “Maleficent” costume even spooked some adults, so it’s not too surprising that it was hard to cast a young child who wouldn’t be afraid of the Oscar-winner’s getup for the live-action adaptation of Walt Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty.” During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jolie, 38, explained why her daughter Vivienne, 5, was perfect for the role.

[Click here to see new stills from the movie, courtesy of the Daily Mail.]

All the other Jolie-Pitt children were afraid of their mother’s horns and creepy contacts, but little Vivienne, one of the youngest in the crew, didn’t bat an eyelash. “They went, ‘She’s so scary!’” Jolie explained about her other kids. Vivienne played young Princess Aurora for the major motion picture.

“We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and I at all,” Jolie said. “But the other 3- and 4-year-old [performers] wouldn’t come near me. It had to be a child that liked me and wasn’t afraid of my horns and my eyes and my claws. So it had to be Viv.”

Though most people sympathize with princess and prince, Jolie wanted to tell Maleficent’s truth. “It’s not that Maleficent is justified, but this story shows how she became misguided. “When that character makes mistakes -- which Maleficent does, and crosses many lines -- you want them to be angry at her and concerned and confused and in the end, somehow understand something that they didn’t know before,” Jolie said.

Jolie said when she was contemplating the role of the “Mistress of Evil” she explained the “true story” of Maleficent to all six of her children. “I said, ‘Let me tell you the real story but you can’t tell anybody,’” she recalled. “So this was my test too, like any parent. The next day, I heard Shiloh getting into a fight with another kid, defending Maleficent, saying, ‘You don’t understand her!’ They got into a bit of an argument and I thought, that’s the reason to do the film.”

“Maleficent” is slated to hit theaters on May 30.

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