Angelina Jolie: 'My kids think I'm weird'

Angelina Jolie filmed By the Sea with Brad Pitt just after they were married. Photo / AP

Angelina Jolie talks of family life and filming By the Sea with husband Brad.

Angelina Jolie has opened up about her family life with husband Brad Pitt and their six children.

While on the promotional trail for By the Sea, which Jolie directs and stars in with Pitt, the actress spoke about what her children think of her.

"They think I'm weird," she told the Guardian.

But Jolie's profession gives her some kudos with her adopted Cambodian eldest son, Maddox, 14, and her youngest daughter, Vivienne, 7.

"Maddox talks to me sometimes about writing ... and Vivienne is just happy I'm a tiger in a panda movie. But, ah, she's just the little one - she's all sweet," Jolie said.

"I mean, there are moments when I can be cool, but they like to mess with me. They like to make fun of me. I'm just ... Little Mummy," she said.

Maddox is already following his famous parents into their profession as Jolie revealed he is co-producing a Netflix project with her.

Jolie has written and will direct First They Killed My Father in Cambodia, where Maddox was born.

"It's based on the story of a friend of ours," Jolie said. "It's her experience between the ages of 5 to 9, when the Khmer Rouge took over. And it's likely the experience Mad's birth parents would have had.

"I want him to learn what it is to be Cambodian. And I want us to help the world understand what a Cambodian family is like."

By the Sea, which has been panned by critics, is about a marriage break-up and, ironically, was filmed just after Jolie and Pitt wed in France.

"I wanted to do it with Brad," she said. "There are always so many projects separating us, and this was a nice thing for us to do that felt free - not part of us that's all the other things."

Jolie said it wasn't too much of a struggle filming the fighting scenes as the couple have frequent arguments.

"Sometimes it just gets absurd," she said. "Honestly, you have to laugh at the absurdity sometimes!

"But I think if you're both strong-minded people, you push up against each other.

"That's part of what's great about marriage: you want strong dynamics."

The couple famously take their children around the world with them and now that they're older, their parents have started to fly their friends out to meet them.

"Family life so far has been very nomadic. So we're talking more about that," she said.

"They're participating more in the choices of where we go.

"And if we have to go somewhere where they're going to miss their friends, we try to get them back for periods of time - or we try to have their friends come out."

- AAP