Angelina Jolie wishes she could still speak to her late mother.
The actress misses her mum Marcheline Bertrand – who died in January 2007 aged 56 after an eight-year battle with ovarian cancer – and often wants to tell things about her six children, Maddox, 10, Pax, eight, Zahara, seven, Shiloh, five, and three-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
Angelina said: "There are times when I want to talk to my mother about something the children do, and then I realise she is not there."
The ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’ director credits her late mother, who was an actress and producer, with instilling a loving nature within her which has never deserted her even when she went through a wild and rebellious stage in her 20s.
In an interview with The Times newspaper, the 36-year-old star – whose father is actor Jon Voight – revealed: "She gave me a great sense of love. I might have been nutty (in my youth) but I was always loving."
Just as Marcheline inspires her as a parent, Angelina says her partner Brad Pitt inspires her everyday and is the rock in her life.
She said: "He is my family … Brad always says I’m so strong when I’m in the world. But then when I am asleep in my nightgown I’m just like everyone else. I’m not so strong."