Angelina Jolie turned emotional during a question-and-answer portion at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), after she was reminded of her late mother Marcheline Bertrand’s battle with cancer for eight long years.
The Hollywood actress was present at the premiere of Couture, in which she starred as a filmmaker diagnosed with cancer, at the TIFF on Sunday, Sept 7.
After the film premiere, Jolie and the film cast entertained questions from the audience. One of the questions was from an individual who recently lost a friend to cancer, and who asked for their message of hope for those struggling with grief.
Jolie initially struggled to speak as her emotion built up. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said.
“One thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer, she said to me once, we had had 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,'” she recalled.
“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,” she continued.
Bertrand was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999, then breast cancer prior to her death in 2007. Aside from Bertrand, Jolie’s aunt and grandmother both died of the same disease.
Jolie later revealed that she carried a “faulty gene” called BRCA1, and that she was told she had a high chance of developing cancer as well.
Jolie then underwent a preventative double mastectomy in 2013, which decreased the risk of her being diagnosed with the disease.
“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made,”she said at the time in a New York Times op-ed piece called My Medical Choice.
“My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87% to under 5%. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer,” she added.
Two years later, the actress also underwent a surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes. – Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network
