Reuters

Angelina Jolie stays connected with her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, through the bond of motherhood.

"I feel in contact with my mother when I look at my children," she told French Marie Claire in a new interview. "I can feel her influence over me then. I see that my way of raising them resembles the way she raised my brother and I."

She added, "It's more apparent with my daughters, Shiloh and Vivienne. Therefore, yes, my mother is there, present in this influence, all the time."

The mother of six described her own mom as "very soft but could move mountains for her kids. That's something I always admire in women: that mix of softness and strength."

Jolie, 39, lost her mother in 2007 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. Last May, the actress revealed that she underwent a preventative double mastectomy after discovering she carries the BRCA1 gene, which increases the risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

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Jolie credits Bertrand for helping her become the humanitarian she is today.

"She was half Indian, and I remember that as a small girl, she took me to a dinner for Amnesty International," Jolie told the publication. "She always tried to understand the complexity of the world. She had a great heart, which was sensitive to the world's violence."

At her recent nuptials to Brad Pitt, Jolie honored her mother by wearing a flower ring that once belonged to her, while her brother James wore an angel pin from their mother's jewelry box. Pitt also engraved a dedication to Bertrand in the chapel where they were wed.