4 Aug – Looks like the kerfuffle over Angelina Jolie's supposedly cruel way of casting the child actress for her movie "First They Killed My Father" is still not ending anytime soon. After the actress' recent rebuttal over Vanity Fair's cover story, which she claimed had taken her words during her interview with the magazine "out of context", the latter's stepped up with a surrebuttal that comes in the form of the actual interview's transcript. In the actress-turned-filmmaker's interview with the magazine's contributing editor Evgenia Peretz, Jolie mentioned that it was hard to find a child actress to play little Loung (the movie is based on Cambodian-born American human-rights activist Loung Ung's memoir, "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers"). The production went to what was called a slum school, which was "for kids in very poor areas". Jolie said, "And I think, I mean they didn't know. We just went in and-you just go in and do some auditions with the kids. And it's not really an audition with children. We had this game where it would be-and I wasn't there and they didn't know what they were really doing. They kind of said, "Oh, a camera's coming up and we want to play a game with you." "And the game for that character was "We're going to put some money on the table. Think of something that you need that money for." Sometimes it was money, sometimes it was a cookie. [Laughter] "And then take it." And then we would catch them. "We're going to catch you, and we'd like you to try to lie that you didn't have it."
As was previously reported, Sareum Srey Moch, who ended up starring as little Loung in the movie, was the only child who stared at the money for a very long time before taking it. "And then when she was forced to give it back became very kind of like strong, emotional, she became overwhelmed with emotion that she was-and she just-all of these different things flooded out. And I don't think she or her family would mind me saying when she was later asked what that money was for, she said her grandfather died and they didn't have enough money for a nice funeral." Vanity Fair, after reviewing Peretz's transcript and the audiotape of the interview, is standing by Peretz's story as published. The magazine is also denying Jolie's lawyer's request to run a pre-written statement that explained Jolie's audition process in further detail, plus an additional appeal to remove the original paragraph and issue a correction. (Photo source: Fabrice Coffrini | Getty Images)