Angelina Jolie Revealed Her Latest Movie ‘Maria’ Changed Her

Angelina Jolie has been making headlines these past couple of months due to her divorce from Brad Pitt and ongoing family issues. But recently, she’s been generating buzz for another reason. Jolie’s performance in the biographical picture Maria has enjoyed immense praise lately. Additionally, doing the project might’ve been as emotionally fulfilling as it was professionally.

Angelina Jolie felt ‘Maria’ was a very healing experience

Maria is Jolie’s upcoming drama based on the life of the late Greek opera singer Maria Callas. The movie covers the last days of the artist’s life, and how she channeled her pain through her operatic performances. All the pieces seemed to fall into place when it came to Jolie doing the feature. The film’s script immediately resonated with her, and Jolie got the chance to work alongside director Pablo Larraín, who she always wanted to collaborate with.

“We met and talked about Maria, and then listened to music a lot. When the script came in, there was so much about it I loved. We talked even further, and we were discussing the character together. So it was a long process,” Jolie once told IndieWire.

Tapping into Callas’ mind became a very personal ordeal for the Tomb Raider star.

“It helped heal a part of me,” Jolie said in an interview with Deadline.

She didn’t get into any specifics as to what exactly it healed. She did, however, open up on what she felt during her performance.

“In some ways I can’t tell you,” she said. “It would be too personal to explain. But from that first day [on set] not being able to breathe and crying to singing at the top of my lungs at La Scala, Milan, those moments changed me.”

Angelina Jolie thought she could just pretend-sing her way through ‘Maria’

Given the movie’s focus on Opera, Maria ended up being unlike any project she’d ever done. At first, Jolie didn’t think she’d have to put any real effort behind her singing. But this quickly changed the deeper she dived into the project.

“I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll pretend-sing and I’ll get through this,’” Jolie said at the New York Film Festival (via USA Today). “Then it was very clear to me that you can’t pretend opera, and then I was scared.”

This required Jolie to exercise her lungs and truly immerse herself in the world of opera. It helped that even after death, Callas’ teachings were still available for students like Jolie to study.

“The wonderful thing about Maria Callas is that Maria was a teacher and there’s a recording of her teaching how to perform, so I listened to her description and followed her instruction and she describes how discipline is everything,” she said. “Don’t think about the feeling, don’t interpret the scenes… Understand the music, your voice is the instrument.”

The result of Maria was a physical awakening that the Wanted actor didn’t think many people experienced.

“For anybody here who hasn’t sung at the top of their lungs, it’s a crazy thing to do,” Jolie said. “We never do it; we never know what it’s like to be fully in your body at your fullest sound. It’s such an extraordinary thing to feel as a person, to know what you’ve got inside of you.”

How Angelina Jolie feels about ‘Maria’ Oscar buzz

With Jolie’s performance receiving notable critical praise, some believe Maria might mark yet another Oscar nomination for the actor. She was first nominated and won Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted in 1999. She was then nominated for Best Actress for the 2008 feature Changeling. In an interview with NBC, Jolie recently shared what she thought about Maria getting the kind of Oscar attention she hasn’t had in a long time.

“It means a lot that somebody thinks you did a good job,” she said. “And that means everything to me. That kind of stuff is exciting and very nice, but I’m just so happy we were able to do this film.”

She later asserted that doing the movie was the real reward.