Angelina Jolie to take year off to spend more time with family

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Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt

Angelina Jolie said Tuesday that she plans to take a year off from filmmaking to spend more time with partner Brad Pitt and their children.

"We're getting work out of the way at the moment," said Jolie, who is currently shooting the thriller Wanted in Prague. After that, she said, "I take two months off, then I work for two months. Then I take a year off."

Jolie, 31, and Pitt, 43, have four children: 5-year-old Maddox, who was adopted from Cambodia; Pax Thien, 3, from Vietnam; 2-year-old Zahara, from Ethiopia; and daughter Shiloh, who was born to the couple last May 27.

The celebrity super-couple are in Cannes to promote the Michael Winterbottom-directed A Mighty Heart, in which Jolie plays Mariane Pearl, widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. He was abducted by
Islamic militants while researching a story in Pakistan in 2002 and later beheaded.

Pitt is a producer on the film, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday. Jolie has drawn praise for her portrayal of Mariane Pearl, a strong woman put under unbearable pressure. The two women are friends, and Jolie said she felt a responsibility to get the depiction right.

Jolie, who has visited Pakistan three times as a U.N. goodwill ambassador, said she hopes to return to do more humanitarian work. "I have a deep love for that part of the world, and I'm saddened to see that every day it seems to be breaking more and more apart," Jolie told a small group of reporters at a cabana overlooking the Mediterranean near Cannes.

She said A Mighty Heart, which was shot in India and Pakistan, had made her "even more determined to go to those areas and spend time with those people and look for great relationships across the world and look for different truths and try to understand deeper."

Jolie, who has visited refugees from Sudan, Angola and Cambodia as part of her humanitarian work, said Daniel Pearl's grisly fate had made her think about the risks of traveling to troubled parts of the world. But she said it would not stop her. "I don't want to live inside a box," she said. "I will be smart, but I will lead a very bold life and I will learn about the world."