ANGELINA JOLIE: 'BRAD AND I FIGHT LIKE ANY COUPLE BUT WE'LL ALWAYS STICK TOGETHER'

The showbiz world was thunderstruck when they got together in a storm of controversy, and they may have endured more marriage split rumours than any other couple.

But Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt weathered every storm – real or imagined – to live happily ever after with their rainbow family in classic Hollywood film fashion.

So it is brave of them to put their much talked about relationship back under the microscope by starring together in By The Sea, a film about a rocky marriage.

But as we meet in LA, Angelina is adamant that, if anything, the film just goes to prove one thing – that she and Brad can survive absolutely everything.

She says: “The film says, ‘Whatever you go through, weather the storm and stick together’. Brad and I have fights and problems like any other couple.

“We have days when we drive each other absolutely mad and want space.

“So it was kind of a message to each other that we are going to weather whatever comes and stick together.”

Angelina, 40, who wrote, directed and starred in the movie, could have cast a different leading man to avoid speculation that the film was about her own marriage.

But she thought it was about time she starred with Brad again. Their first film together was 2005 hit Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the movie where they met and where she controversially claimed they “fell in love”.

But not content with working on a film about a warring married couple, they also took their six children to the By The Sea shoot in Malta and made it their honeymoon. Of course, it wasn’t easy.

Angelina says: “There were a few days when we thought this wasn’t the best idea. There were days when we were really worried and it was hard.

“If we had married and were just starting a relationship it would have been a disaster, but because we have been together so long we wanted to see how far we could push our relationship and our love and see if we could work together under very intense circumstances and with very complex issues and see if it would make us better.

“At the end, we came out of it thinking, ‘This was the best honeymoon’.”

 Many might have preferred two weeks in the Seychelles, but Brad, 51, and Angelina have always been a couple that march to their own drum.

By the Sea is Angelina’s third directorial effort – after In the Land of Blood and Honey in 2011 and Unbroken in 2014. It tells the story of Vanessa, a depressed ex-dancer and her heavy-drinking novelist husband, who arrive in a seaside town in 1970s France with their marriage in crisis.

As they meet fellow travellers and locals they begin to examine their problems and come to terms with unresolved issues.

 As we talk in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, Angelina, looking elegant in a Luisa Beccaria dress, reveals: “I want people to walk away with different things from this film. They will interpret it in a hundred ways and it’s intended to be like that.”

She insists the story is in no way autobiographical.

“Brad and I have our issues, but if the characters were even remotely close to our problems we couldn’t have made the film. The problems in the movie aren’t our specific problems.” What those problems are, she is loath to say.