The Evolution Of Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie's Son Pax Jolie-Pitt
When Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt joined the family in 2007, the couple known as Brangelina were raising four other children: Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, and Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Twins Knox Léon Jolie-Pitt and Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt completed the clan the following year.
Angelina and Brad weren't yet married when the now-exes decided to welcome Pax into their family, so Angelina initially had to adopt him as a single parent. Because Pax was 3 years old when he left his orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, he's actually Brad and Angelina's second-oldest child.
Being a toddler at the time of his adoption meant that Pax was very aware of how much his life had changed when he arrived at his new home. "You can imagine what courage it takes to be in all new surroundings, with new people and a new language. He is very strong," Angelina told People. In February 2008, she and Brad celebrated Pax's adoption being finalized in Los Angeles. By that June, he'd already traveled with his parents to Austin, where Brad was filming "Tree of Life." Moving often would be something that Pax and his siblings all had to get used to; two years later, they found themselves in Venice hanging out with Angelina's "Salt" co-star Johnny Depp and his family. "We are hopefully encouraging [our children's] individuality as they get to know who they are," Angelina told the Daily Mail at the time. Pax's evolution is proof they succeeded.
Why his mom wanted him to eat bugs
In a 2009 interview with Parade, Brad Pitt spoke about his and Angelina Jolie's approach to parenting their unique clan. "I don't believe there is any way around our kids being international," he said. "So we have projects in each of their respective countries, and we put a big emphasis on their learning their native languages." The parents also made sure to introduce their little global citizens to the cultures of their birthplaces.
One popular culinary practice in Vietnam is snacking on various insects, and Angelina found that Pax and his big bro Maddox were rather fond of crunching on crickets. "They ate them like Doritos, and they wouldn't stop," she said in a July 2011 Louis Vuitton Core Values video (via Us Weekly). "I had to actually ban the cricket eating at a certain point because I was afraid they were going to get sick from too many."
In late 2011, Pax's parents took him back to Vietnam for a visit, with Us Weekly reporting that he got to meet his bio grandma, Nhan Dung, while he was there. "It was a one-day visit," a source said. "Nhan was looking forward to it after Pax had lived so many years abroad." There was no word on whether the Jolie-Pitts went back home with some bagfuls of bugs for Pax and Maddox to munch on.
He got a photography job as tween
Pax Jolie-Pitt did a lot of growing up over a short period of time. In a 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Angelina Jolie revealed that he had a difficult time being on the set of her Disney movie "Maleficent" because he was so terrified of her horned dark fairy costume. "When Pax saw me for the first time, he ran away and got upset — and I thought he was kidding, so I was pretending to chase him until I actually found him crying," she recalled. To make him realize that his mom's regular ol' universally admired face was hiding underneath those razor-sharp sculpted cheekbones and that blood-red lipstick, she removed some of her makeup while he watched her.
After Angelina lifted that veil, Pax quickly adapted to the world of make-believe that gets brought to life on a movie set, and he even joined the production team of the 2017 drama "First They Killed My Father" when he was only 11 years old. We're just guessing that his mom directing and producing the film helped him score a gig as an on-set photographer. However, as Angelina explained in a 2015 interview with People, his young age made him the perfect candidate for the job. "Pax is doing a lot of the stills," she said. "The whole movie is from a child's point of view."
Pax Jolie-Pitt and Angelina Jolie collaborated together again
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's long child custody battle began in 2016 when they announced that they were getting a divorce. It was still ongoing in 2018 when a source told Us Weekly [0:36] that Angelina had potentially poisoned Brad's relationship with Pax Jolie-Pitt by telling her son that his dad hadn't wanted to go through with adopting him. However, Pax and his mother remained close in the following years as Angelina and Brad's legal battles showed no signs of ending.
Pax graduated from his private school in Los Angeles in 2021, but a source told The Sun that he opted to skip his graduation ceremony. "He's shy and it was believed he didn't want to bring a circus to the event," the insider said. A year later, his mom gave him another job working alongside her.
Angelina told People that Pax worked behind the scenes shooting footage on the set of her movie "Without Blood." The proud parent boasted, "[He] worked hard." He was placed in the assistant director department with his older brother Maddox. "We work well together. When a film crew is at its best, it feels like a big family, so it felt natural," Angelina said. If Pax and Maddox can convince their other siblings to help out, Angelina might just be able to replace her entire production team with family for her future directorial projects.