Pablo Larraín is rounding out his trilogy of iconic 20th century women, from Princess Diana (“Spencer”) to Jackie Kennedy (“Jackie”), and now Maria Callas with “Maria.” However, that was not without some trepidation from his lead actress.
The upcoming biopic stars Angelina Jolie as the ill-fated opera singer, who also shared a lover with Kennedy in shipping titan Aristotle Onassis, portrayed by Haluk Bilginer in “Maria.” Onassis famously left Callas to marry Kennedy.
Callas was a world-famous soprano singer and infamously had a feud with Renata Tebaldi. The Greek-American singer suffered from near-sightedness throughout her life and was referred to as La Divina or “The Divine One.” She died at age 53 in 1977. “Maria” will debut at Venice 2024 after being announced in 2022.
Jolie spent six months training to portray Callas, including learning how to sing and working with Oscar winner John Warhurst for her vocal portrayal of the opera star. Director Larraín told Vanity Fair that it was all about balancing Jolie’s voice with recordings of Callas.
“How can you make a movie about Maria Callas without using her voice? You can’t,” Larraín said. “[But] you can’t make a movie like this with an actress that is not actually singing it.”
He added of Jolie, “This is the real thing — it was very scary for her, but she did it.”
The auteur admitted that Jolie’s preparation to play Callas was “very long, very particular, very difficult.” As the majority of the film takes place in 1977, towards the end of Callas’ life, the film emphasizes Jolie’s voice in lieu of the singer’s.
“You always listen to Angelina and you always listen to Maria Callas,” Larraín said. “When we listen to Maria Callas in her prime, most of the sound is Callas — 90 percent, 95 percent — and when we listen to Callas older and in the present, almost all of it is Angelina.”
Larraín devised a “musical map” for the film, with Callas’ discography being the entire soundscape for the feature. The director also explained how he wanted to capture Jolie’s essence as Callas onscreen.
“It was so truthful, we just kept rolling and let her do her thing,” Larraín said of Jolie. “She can let you in when she wants, and she can create a distance where she wants. It’s a dance of vulnerability. It’s very intimate because this is a film where the camera is often very close to her — so we were together all the time. Sometimes she would feel me. We would complete a take and she would look at me, just by the way I would look at her.”
And it was a no-brainer to cast Jolie.
“This is the greatest diva of the 20th century, and who could play that?” Larraín said. “I didn’t want to work with someone that didn’t have that already. I needed an actress who would naturally and organically be that diva, carry that weight, be that presence. Angelina was there.”
Per the official synopsis, the film explores the life of the legendary, iconic and controversial singer, often described as the original diva. Based on true accounts, “Maria” tells the tumultuous, beautiful, and tragic story of the life of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and re-imagined during her final days in 1970s Paris.
Kodi Smit-McPhee, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, and Valeria Golino also star. “Maria” was penned by “Spencer” screenwriter and “Peaky Blinders” scribe Steven Knight.
