NEW YORK – Angelina Jolie, with one Oscar win, is being touted for another for playing the legendary opera soprano Maria Callas in the intense, admiring “Maria,” her first film in four years.
Low-key and with a quiet intensity, “Maria” follows Callas in the final three days of her tempestuous life. She was just 53 in 1977 when she died in her elegant Paris apartment, attended only by her cook and butler.
Jolie’s Callas captures the distinctive, slightly affected grande dame speech pattern of the woman who remains revered as opera’s greatest diva.
To discuss “Maria” Jolie sat next to her director, Chile’s Pablo Larrain, at an intimate press conference at Manhattan’s storied Upper East Side Carlyle Hotel. It’s the kind of place where Callas would come for tea.
Although it is Callas’ vocals in the film’s frequent flashbacks where we see her perform her most iconic roles, who knew Jolie, 49, could sing? What did she learn before being able to make this risky venture work?
“I learned,” she said with a laugh, “I’m not as bad as I thought I was.
“But I really had never tried. A lot of people, whether it be someone in your life who maybe suggested you couldn’t, or you just never had the support of somebody saying you could, just never really tried.
“I never had the support to help you through it. So I was very lucky to have people who helped me through this to find my voice. Which was very emotional for me. And then terrifying.
“It was,” she repeated, “terrifying. The whole process.
“But,” she noted, “what an amazing thing, to go through your career and then find something at this stage in my life where I’m terrified as an artist.
“It’s an amazing gift to be really not sure I can do something and have to work so hard and be surrounded by people I trust that they’ll catch me if I fall.
“And I really loved singing. I found myself transported. But then, I haven’t sung since the last day.”
What percentage is it Callas singing versus her singing in the movie?
“I’m sure it’s not scientific, but obviously when she’s in her full voice, it’s her. Completely.”
“There’s always a fragment of Angelina,” Larrain, 47, said. “I had, in my headphones, a premix that someone in the sound team was doing for me, a mix of Callas and Angie. So I would know if she was matching it well.”
As Jolie left, I asked if in 10 years, would she perhaps want to reprise her Maria onstage and do “Master Class,” which sees Callas retired from performing, teaching Juilliard students?
“I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve never played the same role before.”
Netflix streams “Maria” Dec. 11.
