Angelina Jolie says Maria let her be afraid, 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 on Saturday night at AFI Fest in Los Angeles.

Design — after Larraín’s earlier looks at Jackie Kennedy in Jackie and Princess Diana w Spencer — explores the final days of a legendary yet troubled opera singer Maria Callas in Paris in the 1970s, fighting to regain their lost iconic voice.

During a post-screening Q&A moderated by Barry Jenkins, Larraín noted that “I don’t think there was any other alternative, I don’t think this movie would have been made if Angelina had left” and needed a star who could both capture Callas’ larger than life” diva and has the discipline to learn to sing opera.

“I think when they asked me if I could sing, I thought: first of all, sing like an actor – I will sing as much as I can, I will give it my all – without understanding what it means to sing opera,” Jolie admitted, calling the training process ” a truly emotional, very unique and terrifying journey.”

She told the audience that there have been “many moments in my career where I have been asked to give my all and that is one of the greatest gifts, especially for an artist, that someone is asking for and wants you to give everything you have that you don’t know about.” you know you have.” Jolie added that “as an artist she has to be scared again, which is a huge gift because you’re scared and you have to do something you’re not sure you can do and surprise yourself,” with Larraín in the lead: “I knew that I have a safe place to fail, so I’m allowed to be free.

On the red carpet before the screening, Jolie said Hollywood reporter that despite transforming into an opera legend, she still doesn’t “consider herself a singer, but I managed to do it” and, like her character, thanks to the role, “I think I found my voice again. I’ve never sung at full volume. I never had the support to know how to do it, I never tried.”

After seven months of vocal training and immersion in Callas’s life, Jolie stated that she was not sure whether she had put the character behind her.

“I’ve played some real people in my life and you carry them around with you; he is different from the other characters,” said the star. “It’s like she’s my sister now, she’s someone I know quite closely and I really had to fall in love with her in hopes of helping other people understand her. I had to understand her to have hope that I was saying and doing the right thing. . So I will always listen to her music and maybe smile a little differently than someone else because I feel close to her.”

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