Few icons are as mythic as Maria Callas, the most storied opera singer of the twentieth century. 

The same could be said of Angelina Jolie. The Academy Award-winning actor and director of five narrative feature films is known not only for her stellar turns onscreen and behind the camera, but also for her 20 years championing a number of humanitarian causes, including human rights, environmental conservation, and access to education and healthcare worldwide. Both women, widely admired for their grace and glamour, pursued creative passions that put them at the center of public life, catapulting them to international celebrity. 

So when it came to portraying Callas in Pablo Larraín’s deeply affecting cinematic portrait Maria, Jolie had plenty of entry points. “People had a lot of opinions about her,” the actor says. “I don't know of anybody who worked harder or tried [harder] to take responsibility to do the best job she could do. Playing Maria, I took it upon myself to protect the work.”

Maria sees Jolie disappear into the role of a 53-year-old Maria Callas in the final week of the singer’s life. The film opens in 1977 Paris, with the American-born Greek soprano reflecting on and reimagining the experiences that shaped her, including an adolescence spent living in distressing circumstances in Nazi-occupied Athens, a difficult relationship with her mother, discovering the sheer power of her voice, and taking the world by storm with her commanding and emotional performances. Throughout her life, she faced scrutiny for a perceived reputation as a demanding diva as well as her much-publicized love affair with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) years before he married former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. “When you get close and discover why somebody might say she was acting ‘difficult,’ [you find] a woman who was dealing with health issues and went through a difficult time in her childhood,” says Jolie. “Maybe it just will always be that when a man demands something and a woman demands something, society receives them differently.” 

Through it all, Jolie’s performance is riveting — she carries herself with the bearing of a grande dame of the arts, a must for the role. “This movie wouldn’t exist without Angelina,” says Larraín, who directed two earlier films about iconic twentieth-century women with Jackie and Spencer, both of which earned their leading actors Oscar nominations. “You can’t even attempt to make a movie like this without having [an actor] who could properly play her.”

Arguably one of her most stunning achievements is the way in which Jolie, who previously had no formal singing training, belts out some of Callas’s most famous arias. “It’s not [just] singing in Italian [that’s required]; it’s also playing a character [who herself is really an actor when she’s] performing a piece onstage,” Jolie says. “It was so beyond anything I was comfortable with that I think it shook me out of my fear.”

Ignoring any misgivings, Jolie got to work, training for months to be able to sing like the artist dubbed La Divina, as Larraín and his sound team, led by executive music producer John Warhurst, devised a clever method for merging the star’s voice with Callas’s: Jolie’s voice is dominant in scenes that take place during the later years of Callas’s life, while Callas’s is more prominent during the sequences in which the star performs at the height of her fame. 

“Angelina really had to go for it — not only because it made the movie more possible in terms of the illusion, but to also create the right process for her as an actress,” says Larraín. “Angelina was absolutely exposed [while] singing, sometimes in front of two to five hundred extras, and she had to sing out loud by herself [on set]. All that the people would hear was Angie’s voice alone. She was metaphorically naked, voice-wise, in front of hundreds of people. Everyone loved her because she was not only doing well, but she was also so brave.”

Bravery, commitment, and passion? The perfect approach for a cinematic tribute to an enduring artist like La Divina.

An edited version of the conversation follows.

Krista Smith: Pablo reached out to you about playing Maria Callas before the script was even written. What do you remember about that first conversation and what interested you in taking on this part?

Angelina Jolie: Pablo and I had met many years ago, and I loved his work. We talked about one day finding something [to work on together]. I was very happy to know that he was calling and that there was something to discuss. [But] anytime you’re asked to play a real person, you pause because you have to feel ready to do your best to bring justice to this person’s life and take that on. I was taken aback because I don’t sing, or I didn’t sing.
I knew of her and her music, but I didn’t fully know her. So, as I thought about it and read up on her and heard how Pablo saw her, I understood more who this woman was. And then I started to find our connection.

And then the script comes in. What was it like to see it on the page and realize what would be required? 

AJ: It took me a minute. I think I would’ve been even more scared if I really understood all that I would later come to understand about what was expected. But in the beginning, I thought, Well, you’re acting as a singer, you’re going to have to make sure you can sing along with her. I didn’t understand that they needed me to actually sing and learn to sing opera. Pablo and I agreed, O.K., I have to learn the arias. I have to get an Italian coach. I have to do a singing class. I did that for a long time until we all realized I [would] need [to learn from] an opera singer because singing and singing opera are not the same class. Pablo and I were then both informed that to really do the [sound] mix right, I would have to perform with no musical accompaniment, with none of her voice being heard, only my voice in the room or on the stage in front of the audience and in front of the crew. That’s when the reality hit home.

How did you get yourself there to be able to do that on set?

AJ: Well, the funny thing is, for it to be convincing, you have to be very loud when you sing opera, as loud as you can be. Whether you feel confident or not, you still have to be very loud. When Maria is in her full glory and it’s her onstage in the film, the absolute majority [of what you’re hearing is] Maria’s voice, even though I still had to sing [on set], alone, by myself. Pablo did a wonderful thing in that he cast a group [of extras] that stayed in the audience [throughout filming]. They were with me through a few performances, and these wonderful people would become so essential to the piece. I think the first day I met them I said, “I apologize for what’s about to happen in case I hit the wrong notes loudly.” It helped me [that] I was performing to a real audience. They were really kind people who knew that I was trying my best, and [that] I wasn’t an opera singer, but I was learning. We were connected in the attempt and in the storytelling. Their understanding and support were everything.

The production design, the hair and makeup, and the wardrobe drop you into her world. Apart from her physicality, her singing, how did you build her internal life? How did you and Pablo work through that together? 

AJ: He’s a wonderful director. He has such a vision, so creative, so strong, but also very curious and open about how actors are feeling and what’s personal to them. Sometimes directors [excel at understanding] what is very good visually, but [they’re] not necessarily good with humanity. He’s a rare person who understands both. I always felt a part of the process. I felt like he was wanting me to connect to her more than tell me what he wanted from her. He wanted to guide me and give me space, and we would learn together from the situation. The music was key to everything. He grew up listening to opera. His mom would take him to the opera all the time. Of the [films] he’s done, certainly about women that we know, this is the one he probably feels that he knows the most — her world. I learned a lot from him about the music. And he gave me space to understand the woman.

Another truly moving aspect of this film is the way it showcases Maria’s relationships with her housemaid Bruna, played by Alba Rohrwacher, and her butler Ferruccio, played by Pierfrancesco Favino. The three of you have this poignant, beautiful chemistry.

AJ: They’re extraordinary actors. We became a real team through the piece. And I think we all collectively care for these real people, and we thought often about how extraordinary these relationships were. Ferruccio is still alive, but he’s not on talk shows saying bad things about Maria. He protected her — they maintained a real connection outside the world of gossip and people hurting or using people. They were her real friends. They had real love for her, and she loved them. We all felt that, and we all felt connected to that.

What is your favorite part of the day when you’re going to work?

AJ: I like the moment when you’re deeply in the trenches trying to fix something or fight for something or push yourself to a limit to see if you can. I like those moments. I like it when work is hard, and I like being a part of a team of artists. [That’s] a special thing about making films that maybe Maria didn’t have as much. So much of her life was her alone standing on that stage. When you’re an actor, director, anybody that’s in a film crew, you’re a part of a team and that’s a wonderful feeling to be a part of a collective, making something together. And my sons worked on this one, so that was also nice. They were doing [assistant directors’] work and some of the photography.

Are they future filmmakers?

AJ: I don’t know. A.D. work’s not easy work, so it’s good that they do that to cut their teeth. Pax does some
still [photography] and some video, but I think being a useful part of the crew and just being of service is what’s important. We’ve worked together on quite a few projects, mostly ones I’ve directed. But I realized after the first big scene that I never cry in front of my children; not like [I did in Maria]. They can see you weep a little, but anyone who’s a parent knows that you do not show your children that level of pain. You don’t want them to know you feel that or carry that. So, when I saw their faces after one of the first big [emotional scenes], we talked. I think the important thing is they knew that they are the reason I don’t feel like that [in real life]. But then it also was good for them to see their mom try for something she’s not necessarily good at, to experience their mom try and fail at some things and work really hard and be really nervous and struggle — to see that we all get through it together.

Maria has a great line in the film talking about opera, saying you must give absolutely everything to it — records are perfect, but a performance has to be alive. It gave me chills because there is something that happens when you experience opera in a live setting.

AJ: Yes. There’s something alive and dangerous to it when anybody’s trying something so big — you can just feel you’re in the presence of somebody expressing that much onstage. And for [the performer], there’s a real connection to the audience. That was something that helped me a lot as well — I love performing. I don’t perform for myself; I perform for an audience. It was nice to come back to that, just that work and trying to do something and make it as good as I could for the audience.