As a woman who has lost both her mother and grandmother to cancer that was diagnosed in their 40s, Angelina Jolie understandably views her 50th birthday as a goal.

The actress had a double mastectomy and removed her ovaries and fallopian tubes before she turned 40 in a bid to avoid the disease and now admits in a candid interview that she will only feel like she has "made it" when she reaches the milestone birthday.

"Both of the women in my family, my mother and my grandmother started dying in their 40s," she told told US Vogue. "I’m 40. I can’t wait to hit 50 and know I made it."

In 2013 the Maleficent star went public about preventative surgery to reduce her 87% risk of contracting breast cancer, then in March she revealed she'd had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed after finding she had a 50% chance of developing ovarian cancer.

She confides in the interview that going through the menopause early has made her feel "grounded as a woman" but wryly describes the changes to her hormones as "interesting."

Angelina Jolie: “After deaths of my mother and grandmother, I can’t wait to hit 50 and know I made it”