Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie became visibly emotional during the world premiere of her new film, Couture, at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The moment grew especially poignant when an audience member asked her to share advice for those recently affected by cancer, as Jolie portrays a woman confronting breast cancer in the movie and also lost her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, to the illness.
Reflecting on Her Mother’s Words About Cancer
Jolie, who underwent a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 due to her heightened cancer risk, responded with heartfelt candor. As tears welled up, she said to the audience member, “I’m very sorry,” acknowledging the shared pain of loss from cancer. She then recounted a memory of her mother’s perspective on living with cancer. Jolie said,
“I think I will say that, one thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer, she said to me once, we had had a 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,’”
—Angelina Jolie
She added with emotion,
“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.”
—Angelina Jolie
The audience responded with applause appreciating Jolie’s openness during that vulnerable exchange, which reflected the themes of her film, where her character struggles to balance her career, motherhood, and sexuality after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis while working in Paris.
Jolie’s Public Fight With Cancer Risk
In 2013, Angelina Jolie publicly shared her decision to have a double mastectomy after discovering she carried the BRCA1 gene mutation, which greatly increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. In a New York Times op-ed, she explained her motivation and intention to reduce fears for her children. Jolie wrote,
“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,”
and further stated,
“My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”
—Angelina Jolie
She noted,
“I carry a faulty gene, known as BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer,”
and described the reasoning behind starting with breast surgery, saying,
“Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as
