Angelina Jolie: Why My Daughter Had to Be in My New Movie

March 6, 2014 — -- When Angelina Jolie was cast as the lead in "Maleficent," she was game to completely morph into the villain. After all the makeup had been applied and her costume was in place, only one of her six children was unafraid of her new look: her 5-year-old daughter, Vivienne.

Her cool demeanor landed her the role of young Aurora in the film.

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"We think it's fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That's not our goal for Brad and I, at all," Jolie told Entertainment Weekly for its new issue. "But the other 3- and 4-year-old [actors] wouldn't come near me. It had to be a child that liked me and wasn't afraid of my horns and my eyes and my claws. So it had to be Viv."

Also making appearances in the film are her kids Pax, 10, and Zahara, 9.

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"I had to walk by them being very mean," said the star, who added that the kids appear in the famous christening scene. "Of course, I wanted to stop and wink at them!"

However, she did have to cajole Pax a little bit. When he first saw his mother in her costume, he ran away.

"I thought he was kidding, so I was pretending to chase him until I actually found him crying," she said. "I had to take off pieces [of the makeup] in front of him to show him it was all fake and not freak out so much."

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She also talked to her family about taking the role before she formally accepted it. Despite their initial reaction of, "She's so scary!" Jolie said that they eventually warmed up to the idea.

"The next day, I heard Shiloh getting into a fight with another kid, defending Maleficent, saying, 'You don't understand her!'" Jolie said. "They got into a bit of an argument and I thought, 'That's the reason to do the film.'"