Born on November 29, 2003, Angelina told MSN in 2007 about Pax’s childhood in an orphanage on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: “He spent three and a half years of his life with 20 other children in the same place, in the same room, in this little iron bed. He had no choice, no freedom.”
Although Maddox lives with sisters Zahara and Shiloh, “all of a sudden he’s in a very free situation with his new siblings and his mom and dad,” Angelina continued. “He’s learning English and he’s very loving and wild and free. Because he suddenly has freedom, he’s a little wild and crazy. But what a tough, wonderful little guy.”
Interested in the family business, Pax voiced Yu in Angelina’s 2016 animated film Kung Fu Panda 3, worked as a set cameraman on First They Killed My Father, and attended the 2018 Golden Globe Awards with his mother.
He also helped decorate Atelier Jolie, the creative fashion collective and remodeling company that Angelina founded in New York, and worked in the assistant director’s department on the Italian set of her new film Without Blood.
As Angelina told People magazine about working with both Pax and Maddox, “When a film crew is at its best, it feels like a big family, so it felt natural.”
