Sunday, September 20, 2026







Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek Pinault are grateful to have each other at this stage in their lives.

Without Blood (in theaters now) stars Hayek, 60, and Demián Bichir as two people reuniting in the wake of war and trauma. Jolie, 51, adapted and directed the intimate adaptation of Alessandro Baricco’s 2002 novella of the same name.

The conversations on set between actress and director “were delicious” and “very organic,” Hayek tells PEOPLE. “I love her mind and I get her. So I think when you know somebody gets you, you feel safe and you can be whoever you are in whatever circumstances.”

“I think it’s so nice we met at this later stage in our life,” says Jolie, who costarred with Hayek in 2021’s Marvel Cinematic Universe hit Eternals. “Because we’ve been through so many similar things, experienced different things, and somehow have landed as older women in a very similar place.”

“Even though I’m much older than her, by the way,” quips Hayek.

“Not that much older!” responds the mother of six with a laugh. “To appreciate that friendship and that bond and that understanding — I haven’t had that kind of a connection in my life.”

Hayek agrees: “It’s hard to find that connection. And I think that’s what part of the movie is also about, how difficult it is to communicate, to connect.”

In Without Blood, Hayek’s Nina and Bichir’s Tito confront each other over an act of violence amid an unspecified war, discussing its many ramifications decades later. Its subject matter inspired plenty of unfiltered conversations between Jolie and Hayek on the film’s Italian set.

“Sometimes we would start passionately screaming at each other,” recalls Hayek when asked about her dynamic with her director. “Then I start crying and she hugs me, then we’re laughing nonstop. And from the outside, I could see people say, ‘What’s going on?’”

The mother of one adds, “I can say whatever. She’s never offended because it’s coming from me. And we’re talking about issues, and then we start crying because we’re moved, not because we made each other cry... And then we say something stupid and we start cracking up.”

At the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival premiere of Without Blood, Hayek told PEOPLE she was directing a new project that would see her reuniting with Jolie, with the latter in a producing role.
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