"I don't stress about things that don't matter. Before I was leaving today, I said, 'I'm going to work.' And he didn't want me to go. I said, 'And don't call me and make faces and go pffffft.' And I just got the phone call, 'Mama, pffffft,' " she laughs, talking of her 3-year-old adopted son, Maddox.

Jolie takes motherhood seriously, in her life and in her career. In her latest role she plays the exotic and mysterious mother of Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone's new take on the mythic warrior in "Alexander."

There is a maturity about Jolie that didn't used to be there. She's often felt like an outsider, although she lived an "insider" upbringing as the daughter of actor Jon Voight in Los Angeles.

At 29, she's been through a lot. Her marriage to British actor Jonny Lee Miler ended after three years. So did her showy marriage to actor Billy Bob Thornton.

When that union ended, she says, it was the most difficult time of her life.

"When I first adopted Mad, my marriage broke up and I divided from my father. It all happening within a series was the hardest time. Other (tough) times were just youth, angst, feeling lost. That was a very kind of adult time with a certain disillusionment, disappointment, real breaks, just big life things happening at once and just trying, in the middle of that, trying to take responsibility for being a parent and learning about being a parent and try to enjoy that."

Part of the disillusionment resulted in the final rift with her father. Though he has made public appeals to her, she's not going to relent, she says.

"I feel we've only got so much energy in this life and so many things we need to do and focus on, that if there are people in your life that make your stomach go into knots or make you feel like you could throw up from nerves or you see people you care about cry and there's tension and unrest. You can't have that," she says.