Angelina Jolie Opens Up About ‘Extraordinary’ Impact of The Outsiders as Tony-Winning Musical Begins Tour (Exclusive)

Angelina Jolie is reflecting on the impact of the The Outsiders as the musical’s North American tour of launches.

In videos captured by the production that PEOPLE can exclusively share, Jolie — who coproduced the Tony Award-winning show — discusses how The Outsiders has resonated with audiences since the adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s seminal 1967 novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic film hit the stage.

“Somebody said, ‘You know, this is a uniquely American story.’ But I have also found it extraordinary how much the story has resonated globally,” Jolie, 50, says, during a conversation with Danya Taymor, who directed The Outsiders.

“It’s what we have in common,” she adds. “Everywhere in the world has something that has challenged those neighborhoods, those families, those people, where you’re wondering your place and where communities or class systems put people against each other and have made them feel very different and very separate.”

The Outsiders opened on Broadway on April 11, 2024, to rave reviews, and is now in its second year at New York’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. It went on to win four Tonys including Best Musical.

On Wednesday, Oct. 8, the North American tour opens at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center in Tulsa, Okla. — where the story is set. Author Hinton, now 77, wrote the original novel as a high school student in the city.

“It’s so different, and I say that to everybody that says something about seeing it,” Jolie says of the production, in a conversation with Taymor and other creatives behind the musical and its upcoming tour, including co-writer Justin Levine and choreographers Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman.

“And so that’s why I’m so excited, because I know the amount of people that are going to drag their fathers or drag somebody to go see it,” she adds. “And then it’s gonna be that person you drag that falls in love with it and has the profound experience more than – I am so sure of that across the tour, right?”

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The Outsiders tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis, his best friend Johnny Cade and their Greaser family of ‘outsiders’ battle with their affluent rivals, the Socs. The story navigates the complexities of self-discovery as the Greasers dream about who they want to become in a world that may never accept them.

Starring in the tour are Nolan White, Banal Fambrini, Tyler Jordan Wesley, Travis Roy Rogers, Corbin Drew Ross, Emma Hearn, Jaydon Nget, Mark Doyle, Jackson Reagin, and Jordan DeAndre Williams. The production’s touring company also features Seth Ajani, Christian Arredondo, Brandon Mel Borkowsky, Dante D’Antonio, Gina Gagliano, Hannah Jennens, Giuseppe Little, Sebastian Martinez, Abby Matsusaka, Justice Moore, Mekhi Payne, John Michael Peterson, Katie Riedel, Luke Sabracos, and Johnathan Tanner.

After The Outsiders‘ touring production debuts in Tulsa, the musical will stop in more than 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada between now and September 2026. 

The production is also expanding “The Stay Gold Project” in partnership with SONIC Drive-In. A play on a famous line from the original novel and its adaptation, the education initiative helps ensure middle and high school students at public schools who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend the production are able to see the show by offering free tickets and educational resources.

To date, the project has given more than 2,000 tickets to New York City public school students to see the musical on Broadway for free. Many of those students have never seen a Broadway show before.

For more information and to buy tickets for The Outsiders on Broadway and across North America on tour, visit www.OutsidersMusical.com.