Feature by Brad Balfour
Film: “Maria”
Director: Pablo Larraín
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Alba Rohrwacher, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Valeria Golino, Pierfrancesco Favino, Haluk Bilginer, Caspar Phillipson
After he made the killer thriller “Tony Manero,” Chilean director Pablo Larraín began to alternate between his two obsessions — the dictatorship of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet and interpretive biographies of famous women. Putting aside for now, commentary on Chile’s engagement with the dictator, Larraín has created “Maria,” his latest examination of a famous woman. This sort of biopic got released in the city when it hit the 62nd edition of The New York Film Festival as part of its Spotlight section at the end of September.
The film takes a look at opera diva Maria’s final days. Born Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos, the American-born Greek soprano was one of the 20th century’s most renowned and influential opera singers. Praised for her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations, her repertoire ranged from such classical opera as those of Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, Verdi and Puccini to the musical dramas of Wagner. Her dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina (“The Divine One”). But along the way, she endured struggles and scandal, as well as a mid-career weight loss. That contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career leading to her death on September 16, 1977.
To portray his Maria Callas, Larraín turned to Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie. She gave a fine-tuned performance which drove this portrait of a similarly aged Callas during her decline in the late ‘70s. A recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award and three Golden Globe Awards, Jolie has been one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses multiple times.
“Maria” premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 29, 2024 where Jolie received a “rapturous” eight-minute standing ovation at the screening’s end. Upcoming, on Wednesday, November 13th at 7 p.m., The Museum of Modern Art will present a screening as part of its Contenders series followed by a conversation with Larraín and cinematographer Edward Lachman. Netflix then will release the film in U.S. theaters on Nov. 27th before it appears on the streaming platform this Dec. 11, 2024.
Jolie and actress Alba Rohrwacher (playing Callas’ loyal maid Bruna Lupoli) appeared after a recent advance screening of “Maria,” held at the Director’s Guild Theater. This Q&A is culled from their conversation with a moderator.
Q: Talk about playing Maria in all these different ages and presentations. It’s like she has different characters wherever she goes.
Angelina: She literally played so many characters. The character I went for first, and many of you will understand this, is I felt we all know her, we’ve seen her on stage, and we’ve seen pictures of her. When we did the camera test, I wanted to find the older “her” first, the one that was without everything else. We found her glasses, little robe, and nightgown, so I found this very fragile Greek woman who had faith and loneliness. I just loved her, I fell in love with her. Then I learned how she created characters on top of that. She and I were doing the same thing. She was becoming Tosca, she was becoming the “public” Maria Callas. She was becoming that, but who she was, I had to find first, because she wasn’t known yet.
Q: She’s also someone else when she’s at home, in this wonderful Paris apartment, with you, Bruna. Talk about how Maria interacted with you, and what you were doing with her.
Alba Rohrwacher: Hi everyone. [applause] I can say only one thing, that I found Bruna, thanks to Maria, thanks to Angelina. She was so involved in the character, she was Maria. We arrived at this apartment in Budapest, which was some 10 hours from Los Angeles. We were somewhere else in Budapest, but I had the feeling that we were in Paris. Then I entered this house, and found Maria Callas. Now I know Angelina, but I met Maria, and immediately the reaction was that I had as a character, I found the ground, the basis, the truth. The fact that it would be my turn, thanks to you. It’s the truth. It’s beautiful what you said, but it’s the reality.
Q: How did you, Francesco and Angelina find that dynamic, that connection you had inside the apartment?
Angelina Jolie: She was as natural as was mentioned. I felt the same way. It was so wonderful to discover, when I read so much about how lonely Maria was, and how much she’d been attacked by critics and people, while alone. then I realized she had Bruna and Francesco [played by Pierfrancesco Favino], they were there. They were two people to this day [who were there for her]. Francesco is still alive, he’s never written a book about her or told nasty things about her. They were friends. I was so happy she had that. I met these two wonderful people, people who had that kind of love and support as people [for her]. We became a family, and when I would have to do something really difficult, I would feel their support, not so dissimilar to the same relationship. when I was being completely insane.
I knew that they were finding it like, “this is our crazy family, and here she goes again.” There was freedom to be what we all needed to be, because there was a lot of love and respect under it all. I’d like to believe that the real three were very similar.
Alba Rohrwacher: I think it worked.
Q: Did you do rehearsals?
Angelina Jolie: We pretended. I rehearsed a lot with the dogs. I was sent to singing opera, speaking Italian, and dog rehearsal.
Alba Rohrwacher: It’s true. I’m going to put an omelette on while she’s singing [applause].
Angelina Jolie: You learned the flip, then you got the double flip. It was very impressive.
Q: We want to know more about the apartment, the details of it, all the different little props, the clothes — everything that was in there.
Angelina Jolie: Pablo is such an amazing director, there was so much research and respect. We were excited about things that we would find about her, things that she did when we were recreating, but there was a lot of love and fun, and freedom. For the apartment, they found an old place in a building, and recreated the whole apartment so we could live in the apartment. I think it makes such a difference. It wasn’t in a sound stage, and it wasn’t one room at a time. We could hang out and move around, and be in our kitchen, in the bedroom, and it was home, and that does make all the difference.
Q: Your character, Maria, was taking a lot of drugs. She’s got a cocktail thing going, and you are all aware of it, and she’s like lying to you the whole time. Why were those drugs so important to her? What was their real purpose?
Angelina Jolie: From what I understand, she had many, very serious health issues. When she talks about being a purple frog, and being so on, she did something very real. She took steroids. She had to take lots of medication. She was sick often, and missed performances, she was sick, and sometimes she’d miss performances, and people would throw things at her, and call her names, and she was actually sick.
She also couldn’t see. We looked at those prescriptions, and we talked to an optometrist, and he said this woman was almost blind. You realize that this young girl goes into a conservatory, and needs to prove that she’s the best, and she can be on stage. She can’t say, “I need my glasses, please.” She had to memorize everything. There’s an interview where she says, “Well, I couldn’t see the conductor.” Maria probably couldn’t even see the expression of the actor across the stage.
She had to memorize what she had to do to do what she did, which was exceptional. But she had a lot of people in her life that were unkind [towards her], and her mother was very unkind to her. She had very few people who were [loyal throughout her life.] When she was at the top, people were nice to her, and then she failed a little bit. She was sued, she was attacked by her mother and her critics of her last few years before her death.
When she went to try to sing again, They were so unbelievably mean. You can look it up. Yes, towards the end of her life, she was doing drugs. It was the ’70s [audience chuckles]. I remember realizing Mandrax was [another name for] quaaludes.I did find it interesting that Stephen [Knight] and I did think, what would Maria see? This is what she would imagine. But a lot of it was, I think, to escape the pain, and to make some sense of all she was going through.
Q: How much of it was about trying to save herself, like really pumping herself up, at the risk of really losing her health?
Angelina Jolie: There’s a lot of truth to that. She knew that her body was very, very fragile, and knew when she pushed herself, that she had a weak heart. She knew her diseases. So, yes, it’s not a huge stretch to say that her decision to push was dangerous for her. But it was her life.
Q: Mandrax was what it was called. It allowed your character, to be interviewed [by the character Sandra played by Kodi Smit-McPhee] to tell a whole other story, to go back in time. That was a great way to do it.
Angelina Jolie: That idea was screenwriter Stephen Knight’s [creator of “Peaky Blinders”].
Q: How did Pablo approach you on the subject of having to sing? Some of it was a little, some of it was a lot. You didn’t know how far you would have to go at the beginning?
Angelina Jolie: At the beginning — and I think you’ll understand this — some directors say, can you sing? [Angelina gestures]. You say, “I don’t think I can sing, but it’s movie singing, right? So it would be okay.” Then you start to realize… Then I started to realize that Pablo grew up on opera. He said to me, “I can’t stand it when I see people fake-sing, especially with opera. You can’t fake opera, because every part of your throat, every movement of your mouth is so specific, and so, you will be singing.” He said, “I’ve met a few different coaches, so you’re going to start with this singing coach, and start with breathing. You’re going to start with this, then you’re going to do Italian for a few months to get all of it down perfectly because [Maria’s] accent was perfect. Then you’re going to do opera for four more months. I had seven months of classes with extraordinary people, how lucky am I?
Q: In that wonderful scene with the omelette, you’re singing badly, right? And you’re lying to her, that she’s singing wonderfully. Some of it’s your voice and some of it is not.
Angelina Jolie: It’s a mix. It’s funny, somebody said to me the other day, that they thought they were being rude to me when it’s like singing badly is more you [audience laughs]. I said, if I’m accepted as a bad Maria Callas, yes, that’s more me, when she’s in these later stages of her life and not in her prime.
Like I said, I’m thrilled. But so it was a percentage. John [Warhurst, executive music producer] would mix it all together. I thought, “Okay, I’ll sing along with her and then I’ll record secretly in a box somewhere.” They said, “No, in order to get every breath, in order for it to match, so you hear her and we can hear the piano, but nobody else in the room can hear it. The only thing they’re going to hear is you. Even when flipping omelettes. I had to sing to them. It was so insane that it was every fear of mine, every insecurity but there was nothing you could do. You just have to jump in.
Q: You got to sing whole arias, right? Did they use everything you did?
Angelina Jolie: No. [laughter] Even if you only see a piece of “Tosca” [on screen], we did the whole aria on stage. We did the whole performance, and then we just used a piece, but we performed that whole piece. It’s somewhere. It’ll surface.
Q: What was your relationship to opera? Well, both of you. How much opera did you like?
Alba Rohrwacher: I love opera. I grew up in opera, of course. I’m Italian, and so, for us, it’s easier, because we understand what’s in the text very well, mostly, most of all. But, also — thanks to the movie — I discovered more layers of operas. I discovered [what was] behind the artist, I discovered the person that Maria was. I was in Greece one week ago, and by chance, the window of my hotel was in front of Maria Callas’s room. For me, it was unbelievable. It was impossible. Life is so strange. But then, I realized how Maria Callas is still alive. Everyone knows her, especially in Greece, and in Italy, too. But they don’t know the woman. They know the icon, the artist, and so it was for me. Now, I know the person very well. [applause]
Angelina Jolie: I’m American. [audience laughter] It’s a difficult relationship. I have more to learn, but I was taken to the opera a few times growing up, and didn’t understand or absorb it that way. But I recognize this is a very different art form. I could feel it differently. I knew that it was something more than the art forms I had known, and that I had said it was something else, and it was another. But no, I had to really get to know it. I think one of the things that is important to Pablo and was important to Maria is that she didn’t want opera to be elitist. But she wanted it to be perfect. She loved it. She was a technician. She was a perfectionist. She was excited for there to be pieces that were popular and for people to come and enjoy them. She wasn’t trying to make more distance, and she didn’t want it to be just this elitist art form — which it’s not.
I think Pablo was very conscious of that, that he wanted the film to say if you don’t know opera, he wanted you all to know more opera than you did a few hours ago. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe there are parts you’re going to explore, and it’s for you to enjoy. There are things within the film that, if you know opera, maybe you’ll watch it a second time and see that there’s a reason why each piece shows up exactly when it does. As he says, she’s like the sum of her tragedy so there’s a reason why each is exactly where it is in the narrative. It’s something just to listen to more, to allow more into our lives. It’s extraordinary, and it lifts you somewhere that not all music does.