Angelina Jolie faces backlash for emotionally manipulating child actors for her movie

Angelina Jolie talked about life after divorcing Brad Pitt and her struggle with Bell's Palsy in recently published Vanity Fair interview. But there was something else mentioned in the profile that landed Jolie and the makers of her Netflix movie First They Killed My Father in hot waters.

The film is based on the autobiography of Cambodian human rights activist and friend of Jolie's Loung Ung, and tells the story of the devastation inflicted on the southeast Asian nation by the Khmer Rouge. More than 2 million people out of a total population of 7 million were killed during the purge, including Ung's father, mother, and two sisters.

Mother of six discussed working in Cambodia with her son and the casting process for the movie. That one paragraph put a question mark on the methods used by the goodwill ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.

According to the Vanit Fair article, Jolie's casting director looked at orphanages, circuses, and slum schools of Cambodia, seeking kids who had experienced hardships in life. The casting director played emotionally manipulative games with these kids. They bribed these child actors and then later forced them to return the money.

The paragraph reads -

"To cast the children in the film, Jolie looked at orphanages, circuses, and slum schools, specifically seeking children who had experienced hardship. In order to find their lead, to play young Loung Ung, the casting directors set up a game, rather disturbing in its realism: they put money on the table and asked the child to think of something she needed the money for, and then to snatch it away. The director would pretend to catch the child, and the child would have to come up with a lie. "Srey Moch [the girl ultimately chosen for the part] was the only child that stared at the money for a very, very long time," Jolie says. "When she was forced to give it back, she became overwhelmed with emotion. All these different things came flooding back." Jolie then tears up. "When she was asked later what the money was for, she said her grandfather had died, and they didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral."

This is Jolie crossing the limits of what is acceptable as "method acting." The anecdote comes across as exploitative and questions the humanitarian stance the actress-director has been promoting all these years.

People had some strong opinion about the article and the entire process.

N this crazy news week u prob missed the f'd up story of how Angelina Jolie played orphan hunger games 2 cast a film https://t.co/4dYOSTY1W6 pic.twitter.com/HFeoA9lU9F

— Sam Sanders (@samsanders) July 28, 2017

Angelina Jolie is crazy. What a cruel psychological game to play with impoverished children. pic.twitter.com/iAEUhINBui

— Denizcan Targaryen (@MrFilmkritik) July 26, 2017

Why would Angelina Jolie subject impoverished children to this cruel scheme? https://t.co/BTAOugEPST pic.twitter.com/oDmNS07CYC

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) July 26, 2017