The role, she says, changed me as a person.
It helped heal a part of me.
How so, I asked?
Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas and director Pablo Larraín on the set of ‘Maria’Pax Jolie-Pitt/Netflix
Jolie begins to answer, then hesitates as she imagines, one assumes, the headlines that would follow.
Studying the life of Maria Callas would become strife with Brad Pitt.
In some ways I cant tell you, she says.
Angelina Jolie asMaria CallasinMaria(2024). (Netflix)
It would be too personal to explain.
Pain, its clear, is a necessary component.
The Freemantle/The Apartment-produced picture plays theNew York Film Festivalscreening Sunday and Monday, Sept. 30.
Mariareceives a headline gala screening at theBFI London Film Festivalon Oct. 18, with further showings on Oct. 19-20.
But Jolie since hasnt allowed herself to listen to Callas personally.
Theres a sense memory of deep pain, connected to hearing Callass arias, Jolie says.
I think it will take a moment.
But I care for her deeply.
Jolie says that to prepare to portray Callas, she started with the music.
Dont think about the feeling, dont interpret the scenes…
Understand the music, your voice is the instrument, she explains.
Callas called the process straight-jacketing, says Jolie.
And you learn exactly what the composer intended.
Callas excelled at controlling her breathing for her dramatic portrayals.
And that is the most vulnerable Ive ever felt.
The most naked as a performer, Jolie says.
At her first breathing class she cried because you dont realize how much you have to hold in.
He takes issue with my point that Callas was born with a great instrument.
Thats true, he nods but she worked on it.
She shaped it over the years and had an immense discipline more than any other.
She popularized it, he says.
Portraying Callas, has in a way, helped Jolie find her voice.
Not in the conventional way we assume with that term.
Not in that power way that people say, not in that finding my voice or finding my strength.
Its life, Jolie responds.
We get to live it so fully.
What a blessing it is to be an artist.
You live and you study life and emotion and feeling and connection, she says.
She says that Larrain gave her freedom to investigate and prepare to portray Callas.
And I never felt embarrassed for what I didnt know about opera with Pablo.
It was a sharing of something.
It pains Jolie that Callass critics were so harsh about her when her great vocal abilities began to falter.
They were so cruel to her.
How lonely she must have felt.
How much of a failure she felt her voice was at the end.
Just so much pain and so much loneliness.
And were still talking about her, says Larrain.
Yes, were still talking about her.
Makes me feel like weve done something out of kindness for her.
December 2 will mark 101 years since Callass birth.
Jolie smiles then loses herself in thought.
After a moment she wonders aloud: I wonder where well be?
