Angelina Jolie’s Vanity Fair profile contained a story about how she and her team cast her film, First They Killed My Father, based on the Cambodian memoir of the same name. The VF author wrote: “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.” Most people found this story to be extremely exploitative, cruel and abusive. Angelina Jolie heard those criticisms and she issued a statement to HuffPo:

Jolie said in a statement Saturday that the audition scene had been taken out of context. According to the actress, there were parents, guardians and non-governmental organization partners, as well as medical doctors, present throughout the entire filmmaking process, including auditions. She emphasized that no one was hurt by participating in the recreation of the film’s scenes.

“Every measure was taken to ensure the safety, comfort and well-being of the children on the film starting from the auditions through production to the present,” she told HuffPost in a statement. Jolie, who directed the film, said the audition “game” described in the profile was an improvisation exercise based off a scene in the film. She also said real money was not taken from children during the auditions.

“I am upset that a pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film, has been written about as if it was a real scenario,” said Jolie, a United Nations special envoy for refugees. “The suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting. I would be outraged myself if this had happened.”

A source familiar with the film’s casting process told HuffPost the children who auditioned were aware they were improvising a scene from the film, adding that no real money was involved. Casting directors reiterated to the kids auditioning that it was a “pretend game” in order to ensure the actors did not feel any pressure, the source said. The “pretend game” was reportedly based on Ung’s real-life experience of getting caught stealing by the Khmer Rouge. Ung, a Cambodian-American, survived the Khmer Rouge killings that claimed the lives of her parents, two siblings and nearly 2 million Cambodians in the late 1970s.

Rithy Panh, a Cambodian filmmaker and producer on the film, said, ahead of the auditions, crews introduced the children to the camera equipment and explained they had to pretend to steal something that was left unattended and then get caught. Panh, himself a survivor of the Cambodian genocide, called the criticism over the “game” described in the profile a “misunderstanding.”

“Great care was taken with the children not only during auditions, but throughout the entirety of the film’s making,” he said in a statement to HuffPost. “Because the memories of the genocide are so raw, and many Cambodians still have difficulty speaking about their experiences, a team of doctors and therapists worked with us on set every day so that anyone from the cast or crew who wanted to talk could do so,” he added.

[From HuffPo]

Angelina will be criticized either way, and I’m sure people will find fault with her explanation. I take it as face value that this was based on a scene from the film and that the audition process was above-board. Some people won’t take it at face value and that’s fine too.

Photos courtesy of Getty.