Jan. 8, 2007

From the hints Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are dropping, their photogenic, multicultural family is likely to expand sooner rather than later. When People cornered the blond-tipped "Babel" star at the Palm Springs Film Festival on Saturday and asked whether they're considering giving Maddox, 5, Zahara, who turned 2 on Monday, and Shiloh, 7 months, another brother or sister, he didn't hesitate.

"Always, of course," responded Pitt, 43. "We'll let you know when we get there."

Jolie, 31, however, is far more specific about their parenthood plans.

In a sit-down with the February issue of Elle UK, she reveals they're hoping for a brood large enough to stage their own basketball games.

"We definitely want a very big family," the prepossessing earth mother tells the magazine. "It might seem crazy to build it so quickly. But if we're going to have 10 kids, we'd like to raise them while we're young."

Angelina gets surprisingly personal about life with Brad and their adorable ankle-biters in the interview, discussing everything from feeling differently toward adopted tots Maddox and Zahara to her relief in finding a partner who shares her passion for good deeds and poopie diapers.

"It's amazing that there's that thing you should hold out for, that you're not wrong in feeling something's not enough," says the former blood vial-sporting Mrs. Billy Bob Thornton and ex Mrs. Jonny Lee Miller. "What I wanted was to find somebody who, first and foremost, was a great father, because I was already a parent."

Although she concedes she "needed somebody who cared about the issues," she says she didn't fall for Pitt just because he "will travel and he loves kids."

Enthuses the plush-lipped Oscar winner, "He's a thoughtful, intelligent man. When it comes to talking about something going on in the world and what we can do, his natural instinct is, 'How and when can we do that?' It's the same with raising kids. He just naturally knows he's lucky to be a dad to these really funny, lovely little people, so the way he parents them comes naturally. It's just right."

As for talk that Brad only became a family-minded philanthropist after ditching Jennifer Aniston and hooking up with her, Angie pooh-poohs the notion that she wields that much influence over him.

"We came together because we're similar," she says. "We didn't become similar after. He never talked about politics or the charity things he's done, but early on I realized he was aware of these issues."

According to Jolie, she's actually the one who's been most altered by their romance.

"You could say he changed me," she confesses. "I wasn't planning on getting pregnant. I'm the one that got knocked up! So if you look at it that way, it was me who had the reversal."

Besides, "The whole idea of what we are as a couple is just silly. Because we're such, like, parents!"

Angelina also opens up about the adopted vs. biological factor in child rearing, admitting she tends to view Maddox and Zahara with a more sympathetic eye than she does tabloid-anointed golden child Shiloh.

"The world has this opinion about the difference, then you wonder if there is a difference. In fact I found the opposite," she observes. "I think I feel so much more for Madd and Zee because they're survivors, they came through so much. In some way they're strangers because they had this life before me. Shiloh seemed so privileged from the moment she was born, I have less inclination to feel for her. I have to do the opposite from what I expected!"

Continues Jolie, "I met my other kids when they were six months, they came with a personality. A newborn really is this ..." When the interviewer suggests the word "blob," the actress immediately concurs, "Yes, a blob! But now she's starting to have a personality."

Angelina says her trio of tykes is "very funny together, very loud and in each other's faces. [Shiloh's] grown up with Zee screaming in her face in the morning!" Still, she acknowledges, "I'm conscious that I have to make sure I don't ignore her needs, just because I think the others are more vulnerable."

Jolie says that while their biggest parental problem these days is terrible-two-suffering Zahara tossing a tantrum whenever Pitt boogies in front of her, they're already thinking about the day the kids will rebel.

"They'll go against us one day," she sighs. "We were trying to figure out how, because we shoot guns in movies, we have motorbikes and planes, and Mommy's covered in tattoos. All that's left for them to do is become Mormons." (And somewhere in Utah, the secret recruitment meetings begin ...)

Jolie also lets slip that Maddox has already picked out a moniker for his future sibling, one that apparently has his parents a mite worried.

"Last night I said to Brad, 'If this becomes a reality, are we really thinking of that name?'" recounts the altruistic A-lister, who recently enjoyed a respite at a tony Caribbean resort with Pitt and the kids (the New York Post claims they filled their $8,000-a-night villa with 97 pieces of luggage). "He said, 'Yes, I think we have to!'"

And while Angelina won't say where they're planning to find their next family member, it definitely won't be Malawi.

When queried about Madonna's controversial adoption of 1-year-old David Banda, she "chooses her words carefully," according to the mag.

"That's a tough one ... I mean, I'm sure their hearts are in the right place," Jolie says of Mr. and Mrs. Guy Ritchie. "But the reality is Malawi is a country ... Well, it's not on our list, because there's a very limited number of countries you can adopt from."