NEW YORK: Changeling director, Clint Eastwood, says Angelina Jolie "is an actress hampered by her gorgeous face, I think the most beautiful face on the planet."

"People sometimes can't see past that, to her talent. She's on all these magazine covers, so it's easy to overlook what an amazing actress is underneath," he added.

Eastwood, 78, compares the mother of six children to Meryl Streep.

"Actors know, with me they aren't going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks," Eastwood said. "Angelina is a lot like Meryl Streep in that respect."

Changeling is a period thriller set in 1920s Los Angeles, and is loosely based upon the real-life Wineville Chicken Murders. Jolie plays Christine Collins, a mother who suspects that the boy returned to her after a kidnapping is not her nine-year-old son.

When she voices her concerns to the police, she is vilified as an unfit mother and sent to a mental asylum. She later discovers her real son had been murdered.

A priest, played by John Malkovich, helps Jolie take on the corrupt Los Angeles Police Department unit which botched her son's rescue and attempted to cover it up. In the process, the priest exposes a city-wide corruption scandal.

Changeling was well received at the Cannes Film Festival and is expected to win Jolie an Oscar nomination. It will be released in the US on October 31.