Angelina Jolie says Maria allowed herself to be terrified, find her voice

After a whirlwind tour of the Venice, Telluride and New York film festivals, Angelina Jolie and Pablo Larraín brought their film Mary to AFI Fest in Los Angeles on Saturday evening.

The project – in response to Larraín’s earlier looks at Jackie Kennedy Jackie and Princess Diana enter Spencer – explores the final days of the legendary but troubled opera singer Maria Callas in 1970s Paris, as she fights to regain the iconic voice she lost.

During a post-screening question-and-answer session moderated by Barry Jenkins, Larraín commented: “I don’t think there was any other alternative, I don’t think this film would exist if Angelina would have succeeded”, and had needed a star who could capture both Callas’ “larger than life” diva presence and has the discipline to learn to sing opera.

“I think when I was asked if I could sing, I thought: sing like an actor – I will sing as much as I can, I will do my best – without understanding what it is to sing opera,” Jolie admitted and called the training process “a very emotional and very special and terrifying journey.”

She told the audience that there haven’t been many moments in my career where I’ve been asked to give it everything you’ve got, and it’s one of the greatest gifts, especially as an artist, when someone asks for it and wants it. you have to give everything you have, what you don’t know you have.” Jolie added that “as an artist she has to be terrified again, which is such a gift, because you get scared and have to do something that you’re not sure you can do, and surprise yourself,” and with Larraín on the helm: “I knew I had a safe place to fail, so I was allowed to be free.

On the red carpet before the screening, Jolie said The Hollywood Reporter that despite her transformation into an opera legend, she “still doesn’t really consider myself a singer, but I got through this” and like her character, through the role “I think I found my voice again. I still had I never sang that loud. I never had support to know how to do it, I never tried.”

And after seven months of singing training and delving into Callas’ life, Jolie said she’s not sure she’s moved on from the character yet.

“I’ve played some real people in my life and you carry them with you; it is different from other characters,” the star said. “Like she’s my sister now, she’s someone I know really well and I really had to fall in love with in the hope that I could help other people understand her, and I had to understand her in the hope that I said the right thing and did . So I will always hear her music and maybe smile a little differently than someone else because I feel close.

Mary will be released in select theaters on November 27 and start streaming on Netflix on December 11.