Angelina Jolie makes “demands” to her sons Pax and Maddox in “Without Blood”: Salma Hayek

Angelina Jolie knows how to enforce the rules.

The 49-year-old’s sons Maddox and Pax, whom she has with her ex Brad Pitt, worked hard on the set of their mother’s film “Without Blood.”

While promoting the drama about the consequences of war at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, Salma Hayek gave a behind-the-scenes look at the filming.

Maddox, 23, and Pax, 20, worked in the assistant director’s department, where they acted as liaisons between the director and the film’s other departments.

“They work hard,” Hayek, 58, said Sunday in the People/Entertainment Weekly TIFF suite, according to People.

The former “Fools Rush In” star added that Jolie was “very professional with them” on set.

“She’s demanding,” Hayek continued. “They have the respect of the crew, they were good with the crew and they were very much in their place. They didn’t treat me the way they treat me outside. They always said, ‘You have to come,’ and I said, ‘OK!’ It was kind of fun.”

She noted of Jolie’s sons: “They work hard. They take what they do very seriously.”

At the beginning of filming the movie, Hayek recalled her playful behavior toward Maddox and Pax, but she quickly corrected it.

“It’s kind of funny. At first I teased them about it, but then I had to say, ‘No. I have to separate myself and treat them like professionals because this is disrespectful,'” she said.

In addition to Maddox and Pax, Hayek’s 16-year-old daughter Valentina was also present on set. The actress said that the children’s presence made the process “just so comfortable and beautiful” while working with a subject matter that requires the characters to “suffer so much.”

The “Hotel” star also said that the set put together by Jolie, who wrote and directed the drama based on the 2002 book by Alessandro Baricco, “just felt like home.”

“I was surprised, even though we are very close and all, but I was (surprised) how warm and generous and kind she was as a director towards the actors. That was really something special,” Said Hayek.

She added: “I’ve worked with great directors who were really focused, but maybe it’s because she’s an actress too… that everything she wished someone else had done for her, she did for us.”

Jolie directed “In the Land of Blood” and “Honey” (2011), “Unbroken” (2014), “By the Sea” (2015) and “First They Killed My Father” in 2017.

In 2022, Hayek told People that her longtime friend was “probably the best director I’ve ever worked with – and I’ve worked with some pretty good ones.”

She added at the time about “Without Blood”: “I’ve always liked her as a director, but I think this is perhaps her best, or one of her best, films.”