Angelina Jolie has confirmed she plans to retire as an actor to focus on her budding career as a film-maker. Speaking to Du Jour magazine in an interview to promote her new film Unbroken, the Oscar-winning star of Girl Interrupted said she “absolutely” planned to move permanently behind the camera and revealed she did not enjoy being the centre of attention.



“I’ve never been comfortable as an actor; I’ve never loved being in front of the camera,” said Jolie. “I didn’t ever think I could direct, but I hope I’m able to have a career at it because I’m much happier.”





Jolie said in June that a planned appearance as Cleopatra in a long-gestating biopic could be her final acting role. “It’s one of those that you think maybe that’s the one you put everything into and that’s where you end it, that’s where you finish - in a great way,” she said on BBC Radio Five Live. “What could you do beyond that one?”



The film-maker also told Du Jour she had a tough time convincing her husband Brad Pitt that Unbroken, the wartime era story of a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash over sea and spent two years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, was the right project to spark her second turn in the director’s chair.





“I saw these four sentences on Unbroken,” she said, referring to a list of potential films provided by studio Universal. “I went home and I said to Brad, ‘I’m really curious about this film — it’s a triumph of the human spirit finding faith and forgiveness, and this man’s life seems so interesting.’ And Brad said, ‘Oh, honey, that project has been around forever.’ ”





Jolie also revealed her third film, By the Sea, a romantic drama in which she also stars opposite Pitt, was a “walk in the park” by comparison to Unbroken. “The tricky thing is directing myself and directing Brad,” she said. “It’s hard, dramatic material, and we’re balancing.”

Unbroken, which stars Britain’s Jack O’Connell as second world war hero Lou Zamperini, is due in US cinemas on Christmas Day and arrives in the UK on Boxing Day. By the Sea, reportedly about a couple with relationship problems who take a holiday in a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, is due out in 2015.