Angelina Jolie opens up about how motherhood plays an important role in her life.

In a recent interview with the Sunday Times, published on Sunday, Dec. 1, the actress said that being a parent helps to maintain feelings of loneliness at bay.

"I have a family, so I don't feel that [loneliness]," Jolie told the publication, referring to her role in the new biopic "Maria," in which she plays the world-famous opera singer Maria Callas, who died at the age of 53.

"Maria had no family, so her job was everything. My job is not everything," she continued. "Being a parent is everything.

The famous actress noted in the publication that in the preparation of roles, including opera singing lessons, she also worked through her own personal feelings.

"It was a therapy that I did not realize I needed," she explained. "To sing an opera, you need to be as emotionally open as possible. It's catharsis. I never pushed myself or opened myself up like that, it was difficult."

Her recent interview is not the first time Jolie has compared her biopic role, and Maria, a real-life person, to her own life.

"I've been a parent for 23 years. The most beautiful thing about being a parent is that you're not the center of your life," Jolie told The Hollywood Reporter on May 8, promoting the film and discussing how special it was to have her 2 sons, Maddox and Pax on set while filming.

"I've never had a set where my family is not allowed to be there because I'm focused — I'm not that person." You can climb on top of me or visit me," she explained at the time. "It really meant a lot for my boy to be with me in Maria. When I would have a really heavy time they would come and just give me a hug or a cup of tea. It was probably one of the more intense things — usually when I'm expressing so much pain, it's not in front of my kids.1

"You are really trying to hide from the children how much pain and sadness you have," she added. "So I think it's the first time I've heard them cry that way that they're with you when you're expressing it at such a level that it's usually for a shower.

That same month, Jolie opened up about what she believes she has most in common with the late opera singer.

"I was related to a part of her that was very soft, as soft as she really was and didn't have room to be emotionally open as she really was," Jolie said. "I think I share her vulnerability more than anything else.

Jolie shares Maddox, 23, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, twins Knox and Vivienne, 16, with ex Brad Pitt, 6. The two split in 2016 and have been engaged since then in a lengthy legal battle over an impending divorce. (Pitt and Jolie were legally declared single in 2019.

In an interview with Vogue in 2023, Jolie credited her children for keeping her from entering "darker" places.

"I think I would have gone down in a darker way if I hadn't wanted to live for them these days," she explained at the time. "They are better than me because you want to be your children.”