Angelina Jolie took leading questions from journalists at Venice Film Festival on Thursday (29 August) over comparisons between her life in the public eye and that of Maria Callas , whom she plays in Pablo Larraín ’s new film. Maria rounds out the Chilean director’s trilogy of 20th-century biopics of famous women – after Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021). It follows Jolie as Callas, “La Divina” of opera, in her final days.
The American-Greek soprano was hounded by the press during her lifetime over her relationship with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who was violent and abandoned her for Jackie Kennedy. Jolie, meanwhile, once one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, has been embroiled in a series of highly-publicized legal disputes with her ex-husband Brad Pitt since 2021 when the latter sued the former for “secretly” selling her shares in their French winery. In the proceedings, Jolie alleged that Pitt had assaulted her and the couple’s children on a flight from France to California in 2016.
At the Venice press conference on Thursday, Jolie was asked about comparisons between her and her subject. “Well, there’s a lot I won’t say in this room, that you probably know or assume,” she responded with a laugh. “I think the way I related to her may be a surprise – [it was] probably the part of her that’s extremely soft and doesn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was, and as emotionally open as she truly was,” the Oscar-w.