The actress plays a director who receives a shocking health diagnosis while working during Paris Fashion Week.

Angelina Jolie’s new drama Couture reflects her real-life health challenges

The actress plays a director who receives a shocking health diagnosis while working during Paris Fashion Week.

By Sharareh Drury

May 20, 2026 5:45 p.m. ET

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Angelina Jolie in 'Couture'. Credit:

- Angelina Jolie plays a director who's been diagnosed with breast cancer in her latest drama *Couture.*

- Jolie had an elective double mastectomy in 2013 after learning she was at a higher risk for breast cancer.

- *Couture* arrives in theaters on June 26.

Angelina Jolie's latest drama parallels a major turning point in the actress' own life.

In a trailer for Alice Winocour's *Couture*, the Oscar-winning actress plays a director tasked with creating an opening for a prestigious runway show during Paris Fashion Week. While meeting with models and overseeing glamorous shots on set, Jolie's character Maxine receives devastating news — she's been diagnosed with breast cancer.

"You spend life preparing for all these things to happen," Maxine says in the trailer amidst a montage of doctor appointments efforts to complete her fashion show short film. "And then the thing you never saw coming, there it is."

Later in the trailer, Jolie asks her doctor if there is a chance she may die, to which he replies, "Everybody's going to die."

Jolie in 'Couture'.

Jolie's character Maxine shares a somber real-life connection to the *Eternals *actress.

In May 2013, Jolie shared in a ​​*New York Times* op-ed piece called "My Medical Choice" that after doctors discovered she was a BRCA1 carrier, which significantly increased her risk of breast cancer, she made the decision to have an elective double mastectomy. Jolie initially underwent genetic testing because her mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died at age 56, after a nearly eight-year battle with ovarian and breast cancer, in 2007.

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"I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy,” Jolie wrote at the time. “But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer."

In March 2015, Jolie announced she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes also removed as a preventive measure against developing cancer.

Jolie with children Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Jesse Grant/Getty Images

The actress recently opened up about her choice to have a double mastectomy while speaking with France Inter.

"I've always been someone more interested in the scars and the life that people carry," Jolie shared. "I'm not drawn to some perfect idea of a life that has no scars. My scars are a choice I made to do what I could do to stay here as long as I could with my children. I love my scars because of that, and I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to have the choice to do something proactive about my health."

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*Couture* also stars Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier, Anyier Anei, and Vincent Lindon. The film arrives in theaters on June 26.

Watch the trailer for *Couture *above.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Drama”