Angelina Jolie loves getting older.

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie

The 40-year-old actress revealed she has no fears about ageing and welcomes getting older because many women in her family died young.

Angelina - who underwent a preventive double mastectomy two years ago after learning she had an 87 per cent risk of developing breast cancer - explained: "I turned 40 this year and I am so happy. Most women in my family start to get sick and start dying in their 40s and I am going to be very happy to become 50 and 60. I love getting older."

Angelina's mother died of ovarian cancer in 2007 at the age of 56 and her grandmother passed away from the same disease at 45.

And Angelina insisted that family, including husband Brad Pitt and children Maddox, 14, Pax, 11, Zahara, 10, Shiloh, nine, and seven-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox, is the most important thing in her life, taking precedence over her career.

She told the Sunday Telegraph: "I'm now doing films that really matter to me and I can really enjoy with my children. If something inconveniences my children too much, or takes me away from them, I won't do it. When I was younger I was testing myself and questioning everything but now it's less about that and more about these are the years of my life with my family."