Angelina Jolie almost had a completely different resume.

The Oscar-winning actress is a guest on the episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallonher first late night talk show appearance in a decade.

In a preview shared exclusively with PEOPLE, Jolie, 49, confirms to host Jimmy Fallon that she once considered becoming a funeral director.

“You’re an incredible actor, but I’ve seen some things online. “I wanted to ask you if these rumors apply to other careers you might have had,” says Fallon, 50. “I’d be interested to know.” See if any of them are real.

“I’m interested too. “Okay,” says Jolie, smiling.

Asks Fallon: “First of all, is it true that you trained to be a funeral director before acting?”

“Yes,” Jolie says, to Fallon’s surprise. She jokes, laughing, “But doesn’t that make sense?”

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The actress explains: “My grandfather died and I remember thinking: They shouldn’t be like that. This should be a celebration of life. And since I’m not afraid of death and I was comfortable with it, I thought, ‘That.’ “This would be a great career path for me… I could improve this.” ”

“Yeah,” says Fallon. “We need people like that more.” Jolie then jokes: “This is my replacement career now.”

Jolie is currently promoting her film Maryin which she portrays the late opera singer Maria Callas. The drama can now be seen in select cinemas on Netflix on December 11th.

In 2011, the star, mother of six, said on 60 minutes that she had once seriously considered becoming a funeral director.

“It sounds like a very strange, eccentric and dark thing. But actually I lost my grandfather and I was very upset about his funeral,” Jolie said at the time. “So we talked about how maybe there are ways to approach the whole idea of ​​how someone dies and how a family deals with that death and what death is in a different way. If this acting thing didn’t work out, this would happen. “Be my backup.”

Watch Jolie’s full interview The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, December 5 at 11:35 p.m. ET/10:35 p.m. CT on NBC.