'Nightline' Exclusive: Angelina Jolie Rooting for Brad Pitt on Oscar Night

Feb. 3, 2009— -- A few things you might not know about Angelina Jolie: She introduces herself as Angie, she likes making movies more than watching them and, before too long, she might stop acting to be a mother who packs the school lunches for her six children.

She'll start to "step away from acting" to focus on her family, Jolie said during an interview in a Tokyo hotel room for "Nightline's" weeklong Oscar series.

"I don't want to wake up one day and say I had my career that expanded so much longer and I did that many more films and miss out on all those other things in life," she said.

Children are on her mind a lot. She has six kids, three of them adopted, with her mate, actor Brad Pitt. Her rapidly growing family has been the center of endless coverage by the tabloid and celebrity press.

At the moment, though, Jolie is one of the most adored actresses in the world, nominated for a best actress Oscar for her work in "The Changeling," the true story of a Los Angeles woman whose 9-year-old son was abducted in 1928.

Jolie plays Christine Collins, a single mother who confronted the police establishment that returned to her the wrong boy, claiming, over her protests, that she simply didn't recognize her son after five months away. The police actually had Collins committed to a psychiatric hospital because she denied the boy was hers.

The 33-year-old Jolie said she almost didn't take the part.

"I said I wanted to stay away from it because I couldn't sleep the night I read it, just the thought of anything happening to my kids is something I didn't want to think about," she said.

An hour before the "Nightline" interview, she had appeared at a news conference in a body-fitting silver dress that shimmered under the flash of hundreds of Japanese media cameras.

Before talking to "Nightline," she had packed her bags for a trip to Thailand and changed into a more relaxed black knit dress. For someone who is the focus of so much prying into her personal life, she is easy and candid, often mentioning her family.