In a revealing interview with BBC News, Angelina Jolie opened up about how filming her Maria Callas biopic led to unprecedented emotional vulnerability with her children on set, particularly sons Maddox, 23, and Pax, 21, who served as production assistants.
“They’ve seen me go through a lot of things, but they hadn’t experienced me expressing a lot of the pain that usually a parent hides from a child,” Jolie told BBC News about her sons witnessing her portrayal of the troubled opera legend. The typically private star added that the experience created “a new way” of being honest with her children about her feelings.
The Pablo Larraín-directed film “Maria” marks a significant return to leading roles for Jolie, with early buzz, including a Golden Globes acting nod, suggesting potential Oscar consideration. The project required seven months of intensive opera training for the actor, who admitted to being “quite shy about singing” prior to taking on the role.
“When the opera classes began, what it requires with your breathwork and your body and just the force of what you push through yourself, it’s just a very different physicality,” said Jolie, whose singing scenes blend her voice with original Callas recordings.
Director Larraín praised the professional contributions of both Maddox and Pax on set, with Jolie revealing that Pax recorded her early vocal training sessions. “It’s always good for your children to watch your mum not do something easily, but swear and fight and fail and have to try again,” she reflected.
Written by “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight, “Maria” focuses on Callas’s final years in 1970s Paris. It had its world premiere at Venice where it earned an eight-minute standing ovation. The film’s New York City premiere in September was attended by Maddox, Pax and their sister Zahara.
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