Angelina Jolie talks blazing a trail in firefighter drama Those Who Wish Me Dead

For Angelina Jolie, the hardest part of making Those Who Wish Me Dead wasn't the scene where she holds her breath underwater as a wildfire rages overhead, or when she has to outmaneuver two approaching murderers as squibs explode around her. It wasn't even the sequence where she races through a tinderbox of a forest, desperately trying to outrun the flames. No, her biggest challenge was being too nice, The Entertainment Weekly reports.

The 45-year-old actress stars in Taylor Sheridan's survival thriller as Hannah, a brusque, no-nonsense firefighter tasked with protecting a shell-shocked 12-year-old (Finn Little). As Hannah reluctantly guides the young boy through the Montana wilderness, Jolie — herself a mom of six — found it difficult to suppress her own parental instincts.

"My character is not maternal by nature," Jolie tells EW with a laugh. "Sometimes Taylor would correct me because my behavior towards a child was different from [Hannah's] behavior towards a child. It took me a little bit to treat [Little] badly, but I got there!"

The film marks Jolie's long-awaited return to action heroism: After stacking her career with stunt-heavy flicks like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Wanted, and Salt, Jolie stepped behind the camera and has spent much of the past few years directing dramas like Unbroken and First They Killed My Father.