Maria director Pablo Larraín has talked about the extensive training that Angelina Jolie went through to play opera singer Maria Callas in his new biopic.
The film sees Jolie play the renowned opera singer during her final days in 1970s Paris, and looks back at her tumultuous life story.
Speaking to IndieWire at the New York Film Festival, Larraín shared some details about the actor’s preparation for the part. “She had to train for a long time,” he said. “She trained for over seven months. There’s breathing, there’s posture, there’s accent.
“She sang in Italian and French, but mostly Italian. There’s what in music is called the pitch, which is the capacity to reach each note and follow the melody, and that was very challenging for her.”
He continued: “Everyone that does not sing, [including] myself, would have a very hard time doing it. This is not pop music. It’s not like you get in a car and put on a David Bowie song and you’ll be able to sing it. That’s not what it is. It’s just you can’t really sing opera unless you really, really train. We also wanted to capture her voice through certain technical things that you do; capture her voice, her breathing, her every sound.”
Jolie was unfamiliar with opera before making Maria, but Larraín was keen to ensure that the singing in the film was a combination of both her and Callas’ vocals, much of which was achieved after shooting.
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“Later, in post-production, we were able to mix it with Maria Callas’ voice,” said Larraín. “So sometimes you hear one per cent of Angelina’s voice, sometimes it’s five per cent, sometimes it’s 40 per cent. A couple of times – not very often, but it does happen – you listen to 60 or 70 per cent of Angelina’s voice.
“Obviously, this is a movie about Maria Callas, so you wanna have Maria’s voice. But in order to make it believable, Angelina had to sing out loud in front of her crew and hundreds of extras in order to make it possible.”
He continued: “I think she did beautiful, beautiful work. Without that, none of this could happen. Even if you have a great performance and everything is beautiful, if you don’t believe that she’s actually singing, there’s no movie, and I think she pulled it off.”
The film is the third in Larraín’s series of recent biopics focused on famous women who’ve faced challenging times while in the public eye. The previous two were 2016’s Jackie, starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy, and 2021’s Spencer, with Kristen Stewart playing Princess Diana.
Maria premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, receiving an eight-minute standing ovation that sparked an emotional reaction from Jolie. The actor has also spoken recently about how she stopped singing because an ex-partner criticised her voice.
Maria will be released in UK cinemas on January 10, 2025.