Angelina Jolie has always been known for her versatility and fearlessness on screen. From playing complex characters in ‘Girl, Interrupted‘ to directing intense dramas like ‘First They Killed My Father.’ Jolie has never shied away from challenging roles.
The actress, who has now returned to the silver screen with ‘Maria‘, a biopic of the iconic opera singer Maria Callas, recently opened up about why she stopped singing for years. The reason? A painful comment from an ex-partner that left a lasting impact.
A Criticism That Silenced Angelina Jolie’s Voice
Angelina Jolie didn’t always feel insecure about her singing abilities. In fact, she attended theater school and likely felt confident in her skills at one point. But everything changed when she found herself in a relationship with someone who criticized her voice.
“I had somebody in my life who was not kind to me about singing,” Jolie shared in her interview with THR. “It was a relationship I was in. And so I just assumed I couldn’t really sing. I’d been to theater school, so it was weird that it even had an effect on me. I just kind of adapted to this person’s opinion. So it took me getting past a lot of things to start singing.“
It’s surprising to think that even a superstar like Jolie could be so affected by someone else’s negative opinion. For real, these toxic exes know very well how to shake up your self-esteem.
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Angelina Jolie Reclaims Her Voice On A Grand Stage
Returning to singing for ‘Maria‘ wasn’t just a career move for Angelina Jolie — it was a deeply personal journey. The film, which premiered on August 29 at the Venice International Film Festival, ends with a dramatic performance at La Scala, one of the world’s most famous opera houses.
Jolie described this experience as being “so beyond my comfort zone that I was giddy. There was nothing else to do except to jump, to just fully jump.”
Jolie didn’t take this challenge lightly. “It took many months of singing classes,” she explained. She learned Italian and honed her craft to ensure she could do justice to the legendary Maria Callas. Jolie said that singing opera, which requires using “your full body as loud as you could possibly sing” is “scary,” because it’s “rarely asked of us in life to be all that we can be or feel all that we feel.”
The parallels between Jolie and Maria Callas are striking. Both have faced intense public scrutiny and have had to navigate complicated personal lives while maintaining their careers.
As director, Pablo Larraín told Vanity Fair, ‘Maria‘ is “someone who, after dedicating her life to the audiences around the world that would listen to her, decides to find her own voice, her own identity, and finally do something just for herself.“
Jolie’s children were also a part of this transformative experience. She had her sons, Maddox and Pax, with her on set during some of the film’s more emotionally intense scenes. “Usually when I’m expressing that much pain, it’s not in front of my children. You really try to hide from your children how much pain and sadness you carry.” Jolie said.
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