Angelina Jolie defends cruel' casting game for movie

Hollywood actress-filmmaker Angelina Jolie has defended the casting process for her new movie First They Killed My Father, insisting that the welfare of the children involved was her highest priority.

The star was criticised after a recent Vanity Fair profile described how casting directors looked through Cambodian orphanages, circuses, and slum schools to find a child actor to play their lead, Loung Ung.

During the auditions, they also set up a game where money was put on a table and children were encouraged to think of what they needed it for before the cash was snatched away.

However, Jolie, 42, who adopted her oldest son Maddox, 15, from Cambodia, has now clarified the casting process and revealed that the game was a “pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film”.

In a statement to Variety, she said, “Every measure was taken to ensure the safety, comfort and well-being of the children on the film starting from the auditions through production to the present.”