Angelina Jolie has spoken out about how much she misses her mum, the late actor Marcheline Bertrand, in a candid and moving interview with her friend Marianne Pearl in Elle France.

“She would have thrived as a grandmother,” Jolie says of Bertrand, who died of breast cancer in 2007. “I know how much she would have contributed to their [her children’s] lives and I am sad they will miss out on that.”

The director and her estranged husband Brad Pitt have six kids together – Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and 8-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.

The couple announced they were separating last September after 11 years together, and Jolie says she has really missed having her mum’s advice in recent months.

“I would give anything for her to be with me at this time. I’ve needed her,” the 41-year-old says. “I talk to her often in my mind and try to think what she might say and how she might guide me.”

“I've needed her”: Angelina Jolie opens up about her late mother in moving interview