Jolie: I thought I'd never find love

Known for her humanitarian works and action movies, Angelina Jolie is an actress who has been in the spotlight since she was a child. Here's a look at her life.

Jolie, center, hugs her father, Jon Voight, in Los Angeles in 1980. Her brother, James, is at left.

Jolie, then 15, poses for a photo in January 1991.

Jolie and Jon Voight are seen in an undated photo.

Jolie attends an event in New York City, circa 1998.

Jolie appears at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills in January 2000. She won the award for best supporting actress for her role in "Girl, Interrupted."

Jolie and her husband at the time, Billy Bob Thornton, appear at the premiere of her film "Gone in 60 Seconds" in Los Angeles in June 2000. They divorced in 2003.

Jolie and her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, are photographed at the premiere of Jolie's film "Original Sin" in Hollywood in July 2001. Bertrand died in January 2007 of ovarian cancer.

Jolie distributes balls to the children at the Tham Hin refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border in May 2002. She is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.

Jolie carries her son Maddox at the world premiere of "Shark Tale" in September 2004 in Venice, Italy.

Jolie appears on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in March 2004 in Burbank, California.

Jolie attends the German premiere of "Alexander" in December 2004 in Cologne, Germany.

Jolie speaks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad, Pakistan, in May 2005 as part of her role as goodwill ambassador for UNCHR.

Brad Pitt, from left, producer Arnon Milchan and Jolie appear at the premiere of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" in June 2005 in Westwood, California.

Jolie and Pitt are photographed at the 61st Cannes International Film Festival in May 2008 in Cannes, France.

Jolie greets fans at the Russian premiere of her film 'Salt" in July 2010 on Moscow.

Jolie walks with four of her children -- Maddox, from left, Zahara, Pax and Shiloh -- at Japan's Narita International Airport in July 2010.

Jolie appears at the 68th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverley Hills in January 2011.

Pitt and Jolie appear at the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles in January 2012.

Jolie meets Syrian refugees in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in September 2012 in her role as UNCHR special envoy.

Jolie announces in a May 14 New York Times op-ed that she underwent a preventive double mastectomy after learning that she carries a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which sharply increases her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Here, on June 2, she makes her first red carpet appearance since the surgery at the London premiere of Pitt's new movie, "World War Z."

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• Angelina Jolie opens up about her past and present in Elle magazine


• The actress says her so-called rebellious behavior was her trying to find herself


• She also never imagined that she'd have kids, or find love


• Now, she and her partner Brad Pitt are navigating having kids in show business

(CNN) -- Remember the dark and brooding Angelina Jolie, the one who wore one husband's blood around her neck and shared an uncomfortably intense kiss with her brother?

That wasn't about rebellion, Jolie tells Elle magazine in its June issue. That was a 20-something trying to find herself.

"It wasn't a need to be destructive or rebellious -- it's that need to find a full voice, to push open the walls around you," the 38-year-old actress says. "You want to be free. And as you start to feel that you are being corralled into a certain life, you kind of push against it. It may come out very strange, it may be interpreted wrong, but you're trying to find out who you are."

Interestingly, who she thought she'd become and who she ended up being are two different things. Now a mom of six and engaged to Brad Pitt, Jolie says she once believed she wouldn't have kids or find love.

"I never thought I'd have children, I never thought I'd be in love, I never thought I'd meet the right person," Jolie says. "Having come from a broken home -- you kind of accept that certain things feel like a fairy tale, and you just don't look for them."

Jolie and Pitt's relationship dates back to 2005, the same year their action thriller/romance movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" arrived in theaters. At the time, Pitt petitioned to formally adopt Jolie's two kids, Maddox and Zahara, and since then the couple have welcomed four more children: Shiloh, Pax and twins Vivienne and Knox.

"You get together and you're two individuals and you feel inspired by each other," Jolie says of her relationship with Pitt. "(Y)ou challenge each other, you complement each other, drive each other beautifully crazy. After all these years, we have history -- and when you have history with somebody, you're friends in such a very real, deep way that there's such a comfort, and an ease, and a deep love that comes from having been through quite a lot together."

Lately Pitt and Jolie -- who announced their engagement in April 2012 -- are dealing with how to introduce their kids to show business. Vivienne co-stars with Jolie in the May 30 release "Maleficent," with Zahara and Pax also making a brief appearance.

The movie is a live-action re-telling of the "Sleeping Beauty" story from the wicked sorceress Maleficent's point of view, and Jolie explained that Vivienne was cast as the young Aurora because she was the only child who could withstand Jolie's evil character.

"My little Vivienne -- we call her my shadow, because there's nothing I can do to shake her," Jolie tells Elle. "I can be tired, I can be grumpy, I can be in a terrible mood, and she doesn't care. It's 'Mommy, Mommy,' and she'll cling to me. We knew that she would still do that thing, she'd still smile at me and insist that I pick her up. So we couldn't really cast anybody else."

(And apparently Jolie did try; when she asked her daughter Shiloh "about being Aurora, and she laughed in my face," Jolie recalls. "She said she'd be a horned creature.")

While Jolie and Pitt don't discourage their kids from being involved in their careers, neither of them is eager to see the brood follow in their footsteps.

"Brad and I made the decision that we wouldn't keep them from sets and the fun of making movies, but we wouldn't [glorify it either] -- we wouldn't make it a good thing or a bad thing," Jolie says. "But I would really prefer they do something else ... (A)fter two days of it, Brad and I were so stressed we never wanted to do it again."