Angelina Jolie reflects on family cancer history before 'Couture' premiere

By Sarah Mills

TORONTO, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie had a strong message about hope and living her best life as she reflected on her family's history of cancer before the world premiere of "Couture" on Sunday.

The "Salt" and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" actor was at the Toronto International Film Festival promoting her film "Couture," the story of an American film director navigating the Parisian fashion industry while she is given a serious medical diagnosis and is in the midst of a divorce.

"I'm 50 now. My mother and grandmother by this age were in chemo," Jolie said, walking down the red carpet with her co-stars.

"We all have these things we worry about or people we love. And it's either going to make us slow down and almost feel we can't move, take a step, or we're going to make the most of this life before it's over."

Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 after learning she had inherited a high risk of breast cancer and said she hoped her story would inspire other women fighting the life-threatening disease.

She went through with the operation in part to reassure her six children that she would not die young from cancer, as her own mother did at age 56.

"She has a personal connection to the subject of illness and what that does to a body and being confronted to that. And I believe she talks the best about that," co-star Ella Rumpf said.