‘I’ve been holding a lot for a long time’: Angelina Jolie broke down during singing lessons for Maria

Jolie stars as Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s new biopic about the famed American-born Greek opera singer

Angelina Jolie has opened up about the emotional release she experienced while taking singing lessons for her new movie, Maria.

The Oscar-winning actor, 49, leads director Pablo Larraín’s biopic about the final few days of the famed American-born Greek opera singer, Maria Callas, before her fatal 1977 heart attack.

“I walked into the room with the piano, and somebody said, ‘Ok, let’s see where you’re at.’ And I got really emotional. I took a big deep breath, and I let out a sound, and I started crying,” Jolie shared in a new interview with Variety.

“I think we all don’t realize how much we hold inside our bodies, and how much we carry and how much that affects our sound and our voice and our ability to make sound,” she continued.

“I’ve been holding a lot for a long time, and that beginning and that sound, and then when that sound would eventually come, it was the best therapy I’ve ever had,” she admitted, going on to suggest that others try singing lessons as a form of therapy too.

“Honestly, I think I would tell a lot of people before you try therapy and spend too much time there, go to singing class.”

Of the healing powers of singing, she said: “It helped me a lot. There’s something primal about finding your own voice within your own body. It brings up certain emotions that you may have not wanted to confront, and there’s no way to sing at your full voice and your full emotion without confronting your feelings and your limitations.”

Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in the film ‘Maria' (The Apartment Pictures)

At the movie’s debut at the American Film Institute Festival earlier this week, Jolie spoke to People about her connection to Callas, saying: “I don’t want to speak too much about it because it’s too personal, but there’s definitely a loneliness and a work ethic.

“I’m an imperfect person, but I work very hard and she does,” she said.

Her comments echo previous remarks in which she revealed that she doesn’t have many “close relationships” after “being betrayed a lot.”

“I don’t have a lot of those warm, close relationships as much that I lean on. But I have a few, and a few is enough. Loung [Ung] is one of my closest friends. My mother was very close to me. I lost her,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in September. “I have a couple of people that I trust. What did Maria Callas die with? Two trusted people.”

Following the movie’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this summer, The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey praised Jolie’s performance, calling it “career-defining.”

“[It’s] one of Jolie’s very best performances,” she declared in her four-star review.

Maria will be out in theaters on November 27 before being available to stream on Netflix in the US from December 11 and on January 10, 2025 in the UK.