Angelina Jolie on Brad Pitt: “we just became kind of a pair”

Angelina Jolie has revealed for the first time how she and Brad Pitt fell in love - and insists that she didn’t steal him from “his best friend”, then wife Jennifer Aniston.

The two got to know each other while filming Mr and Mrs Smith and Angelina told US Vogue: “Brad was a huge surprise to me. I, like most people, had a very distant impression of him from the media. I didn’t know much about exactly where Brad was in his personal life but it was clear he was with his best friend [Jennifer], someone he loves and respects.”

“I think we were the last two people who were looking for a relationship. I was quite content to be a single mom.”

“Because of the film, we ended up being brought together to do all these crazy things, and I think we found this strange friendship and partnership that kind of just suddenly happened. I think a few months in I realised, ‘God, I can’t wait to get to work.’”

“Whether it was shooting a scene or arguing about a scene or gun practice or dance class or doing stunts - anything we had to do with each other, we just found a lot of joy in it together and a lot of real teamwork. We just became kind of a pair.”

“It took until, really, the end of the shoot for us, I think, to realize that it might mean something more than we’d earlier allowed ourselves to believe. And both knowing that the reality of that was a big thing, something that was going to take a lot of serious consideration.”

Angelina insists nothing happened between them until after Brad and Jennifer announced their decision to split in January 2005.

After that, the now couple began to explore their friendship further: “We spent a lot of time contemplating and thinking and talking about what we both wanted in life and realised that we wanted very, very similar things. And life developed in a way where we could be together, where it felt like something we would do, we should do.”

But ultimately it was her son Maddox’s adoption of Brad (and not vice versa) that cemented their relationship. She revealed that one day the three were playing together and “just out of the blue [Maddox] called him Dad. It was amazing.”

“We were playing with cars on the floor of a hotel room, and we both heard it and didn’t say anything and just looked at each other. So that was probably the most defining moment, when he decided that we would all be a family.”

The couple now have two more children together - daughters Zahara and Shiloh - but have no intention of getting married: “We both have been married before, so it’s not marriage that’s necessarily kept some people together.”

“We are legally bound to our children, not to each other, and I think that’s the most important thing.”

She added that her notorious days of wild living are behind her now since she became a mum: “I’m committed to the future now. I’m committed to life.”

“I think definitely before my son, I was a little nihilistic. But once I adopted Mad [Maddox], I knew I was never going to be intentionally self-destructive again.”

“I’m starting to be able to see being 50 years old with the kids graduating from high school.”

The full interview is printed in the January issue of the magazine.