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Producer Joe Roth Would Not Have Made Maleficent If Angelina Jolie Turned The Role Down

by WENN | 10 April 2014

Picture: Joe Roth, Sam Raimi, Joey King, David Briem, Seth Rogen and Leron G - James Franco is honoured with a Hollywood Star on the Hollywood...


 Movie producer Joe Roth would have abandoned plans to make new Disney film Maleficent if Angelina Jolie had turned down the lead role.

The Hollywood power player behind the hits Alice in Wonderland and Snow White and the Huntsman admits he approached Jolie before he had a director for the film in place - because if she had said no to the villainous part, he would not have proceeded with the project.

He tells Wenn, "She seemed like the only person who could play the part. There was no point in making the movie if it wasn't her.

"I went to her house and I saw her kids and one of the kids had horns on and I thought, 'Oh, that's a good sign!' 

Someone else in her family said she'd always wanted to play the part as a kid. I thought, 'Great, here's the opportunity'. "I said I'd produce it and we'd work together and make sure we made a good movie. She said, 'Yes'."

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Angelina Jolie in Maleficent
Hollywood's most formidable leading lady is back after a relatively quiet spell, in a role playing on her scariness and seniority. This reinvented fairytale is a twist on The Sleeping Beauty, and Jolie is not playing the insipid dormant heroine with her crybaby attitude to finger-pricking but the evilly magnificent Maleficent, the sorceress who casts a spell on the demure young Princess Aurora. How did she get that way? Everything will depend on the script – but Jolie is always a great turn. Peter Bradshaw 30 May.