After a whirlwind tour of the Venice, Telluride and New York film festivals, Angelina Jolie and Pablo Larraín brought their film Mary at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
The project, which follows Larraín's previous looks at Jackie Kennedy in Jackie and Princess Diana Spencer – explores the final days of the legendary but tormented opera singer Maria Callas in 1970s Paris, as she fights to recover the iconic voice she lost.
During a post-screening Q&A session, moderated by Barry Jenkins, Larraín noted that “I don't think there was another alternative, I don't think this film would exist if Angelina had passed” and required a star who could capture both The presence of Callas' “larger than life” diva and the discipline needed to learn to sing opera.
“I think when I was asked if I could sing, I thought, one, sing like an actor – I'll sing as much as I can, I'll do my best – not understanding what it means to sing opera,” Jolie admitted, defining the process of training “a truly exciting journey, very special and terrifying”.
He told the audience that there haven't been “many moments in my career where I've been asked to give everything I have, and it's one of the greatest gifts, especially as an artist, for someone to ask for and want.” to give everything you have that you don't know you have.” Jolie added that she “has to be terrified again as an artist, which is a real gift, because you get scared and have to do something you're not sure you can do, and surprise yourself”, and with Larraín at the helm, “I knew to have a safe place to fail, so I was allowed to be free.
On the red carpet before the screening, Jolie said The Hollywood journalist that despite turning into an opera legend, she still doesn't consider herself “really a singer, but I did this one” and, just like her character, through the role “I think I found my voice again. I had never sung at the top of my lungs. I had never had support to know how to do it, I had never tried.”
And after undergoing seven months of vocal training and immersing herself in Callas' life, Jolie said she's still not sure she's left the character behind.
“I've played some real people in my life and you take them with you; he's different from other characters,” the star said. “For example, she's my sister, she's someone who I know quite intimately and who I really had to fall in love with in order to hope that I could help others understand her, and I had to understand her in order to hope to say and do the right thing. So I will always listen to her music and maybe I'll smile a little differently than someone else, because I feel close.
Mary will arrive in select theaters on November 27 and begin streaming on Netflix on December 11.