The Hollywood Reporter posted a story yesterday about Angelina Jolie bringing cookies to Vivienne’s martial arts class:
The Oscar winner surprised parents at Shaolin American Self Defense Academy when she showed up with daughter Vivienne Jolie Pitt, 9, and Day of the Dead-decorated cookies from Porto's Bakery for the dozen or so kids.
According to a parent with a child in the class, "Every time Vivienne did a move, Angelina made sure to watch and smile at her — it was sweet."
The source added that Jolie kept busy in the class reading a script, and it must've been top secret because it had her name printed on each page. It's a precaution taken by producers to prevent leaks. It was recently reported that Jolie will voice star in The One and Only Ivan, a Disney film based on the Newbery Medal-winning book written by Katherine Applegate and illustrated by Patricia Castelao. As a director, the Oscar winner was honored along with Luong Ung at the Nov. 5 Hollywood Film Awards with the Hollywood Foreign Language Film Award for their Netflix film First They Killed My Father.
There’s even a picture of one of the cookies included at the bottom of THR’s article.
The other day, I mentioned Janice Min’s interview on The Bill Simmons podcast – have you listened to it yet? Janice was the former editor of US Weekly and then left to overhaul The Hollywood Reporter. Part of their discussion was about how she and her team reimagined the trade and the work that went into making THR a resource about the workings of the industry. It was, in other words, gossip about the gossip, inside baseball, and read by many of the major players in Hollywood, because they can’t get enough of themselves. With that in mind, this Angelina Jolie story, it’s not typically what THR does. But, at the same time, it’s totally what THR does.
Angelina Jolie being a mom who brings cookies to her kid’s martial arts class is, on the surface, an item that, usually, would be more suited to E! News or PEOPLE, right? Usually. But we’re getting deeper into November. It’s award season. And Angelina right now is part of the award season conversation with First They Killed My Father in contention for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination. Placing a story like this at THR would certainly guarantee a certain set of eyeballs.
And it’s a great story. Like of course Angelina Jolie wouldn’t bring some basic ass cookies to the kids’ martial arts class. Of course they’d be Day Of The Dead cookies. Shiloh probably picked them out.
