Angelina Jolie embraces the 'extremes' of war films

Angelina Jolie is "drawn" to making movies about war.

The 49-year-old star's latest directorial effort 'Without Blood' is set during an unspecified conflict and she described the way in which her humanitarian work has showcased how war highlights the "extremes of the human condition".

Speaking to Variety at the Toronto International Film Festival, Angelina said: "I think conflict tends to bring out absolutely the worst in our behaviour toward each other and often the best, when those who fight against or rise above.

"As artists, a lot of our work is this study of what it is to be human. So these extremes of the human condition are what we're trying to understand sometimes and are drawn to.

"Certainly I'm somebody who, as I've travelled and done other (humanitarian) work in the field, I've always questioned why and how."

Jolie's film features Salma Hayek and Demian Bechir in the lead roles of Nina and Tito and the former admits that she was reluctant to star in the flick because of the "pain" her character has to suffer.

The 58-year-old actress said: "I was afraid to play this part. I was not immediately jumping in it because she suffers so much, my character, and I had to go there and suffer for the entire time of the shooting.

"You cannot expel the pain. You have to keep it boiling, boiling, boiling for hours, for days, for weeks. So I was terrified and I didn't want to do it."

Hayek continued: "The more we talked about it... I started seeing myself, my own traumas, the traumas of people that I know, that are close to me, in this character that was so foreign at the beginning and where I didn't want to go.

"I started realising, 'What do you mean you don't want to go? You've always been there.' I started seeing how it connected to so many women even if you're not post-war. We've all been tossed aside and not seen or abused in one way or another."