Angelina Jolie has termed Vanity Fair magazine’s description of the audition process for her upcoming movie First They Killed My Father as false and upsetting, reported Huffington Post.
In Vanity Fair’s cover story on the actress, it was mentioned that the casting directors played a disturbing game, in which money was shown to children from “orphanages, circuses and slum schools” and was later snatched away to capture their untutored reactions. “In order to find their lead, to play young Loung Ung, the casting directors set up a game, rather disturbing in its realism,” the piece read. The story led to an uproar on social media.
Jolie, however, has refuted Vanity Fair’s description, saying it was out of context. “I am upset that a pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film, has been written about as if it was a real scenario,” she said. “The suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting. I would be outraged myself if this had happened.” She also clarified that parents, guardians and non-governmental organisation officials were present throughout the making of the film, and that nobody was hurt during the process.
First They Killed My Father is based on Cambodian activist Loung Ung’s memoir of the same name. Ung’s book is a personal account of Cambodian dictator Pol Pot’s brutal regime between 1975 and 1979. Bankrolled and directed by Jolie, the film will be released on Netflix.