HANOI — Actor Angelina Jolie finalized the
adoption of a Vietnamese orphan on Tuesday, adding a fourth
child to her family, according to the US-based adoption agency
that organized the process.
Jolie has remained out of public view since
arriving in southern Ho Chi Minh City last Wednesday to pick up
the 3 1/2-year-old boy from an orphanage and traveling to Hanoi
on Monday to complete the adoption.
The boy’s birth name is Pham Quang Sang but
Jolie has renamed him Pax Thien Jolie, a name that combines the
Latin word for peace and the Vietnamese word for sky or heaven.
"The Vietnamese authorities had already
cleared the adoption, and the US Embassy approved the adoption
on Tuesday," said spokeswoman Laura Feragen on behalf of
Philadelphia-based nonprofit agency Adoptions From the Heart.
"They will pick up Pax’s visa on Wednesday
and they are free to go home," she said.
Oscar-winning Jolie, 31, traveled to Vietnam
with her 5-year-old son Maddox, who was adopted from Cambodia,
and 2-year-old sister Zahara, adopted from Ethiopia.
She also has a biological child Shiloh Nouvel
with actor and companion Brad Pitt.
An online newspaper on Tuesday reported that
as Jolie finalized the paperwork, her adopted sons played and
communicated by sign language in the lobby of the historic
luxury Metropole Hotel in Hanoi.
"Maddox and Sang played in the lobby and they
seemed to get along really well," the online VNExpress quoted an
unidentified hotel staff member as saying. "They don’t
understand each other’s language, but they used sign language to
communicate."
Completion of the adoption came as Hollywood
trade paper Daily Variety reported on Tuesday that Jolie has
been cast in her next movie, an action film called "Wanted," set
to begin shooting in Eastern Europe in May. Variety said she
will play an assassin who teaches the ropes to an aspiring
hitman.
Jolie, her family and their assistants
arrived in Hanoi on Monday and checked into the white facade
Metropole Hotel, which opened during French colonial rule in
1901. It has rooms named for Charlie Chaplin, an early Hollywood
star, and the English author Graham Greene.
During Tuesday’s lunch hour, a silver minivan
with darkened windows — thought to be carrying Jolie — drove
quickly into the Rose Garden Tower, one of two US Embassy
buildings in the Vietnamese capital. The vehicle left about 35
minutes later.
Security in front of the embassy increased noticeably before
the vehicle arrived. US officials declined comment on Jolie’s
adoption, saying it was a private matter. —Reuters