Angelina Jolie’s biopic “Maria,” about American-Greek opera singer Maria Callas, was released in theaters Nov. 27 and is now streaming on Netflix. One of the big questions surrounding the film is whether or not Jolie actually sings — and it turns out the answer is yes, kind of.
It turns out most of the final versions of the songs in “Maria” were created by blending Callas’ voice with Jolie’s. Director Pablo Larraín told IndieWire, “Sometimes you hear 1 percent of Angelina’s voice, sometimes it’s 5 percent, sometimes it’s forty percent, in a couple of times, not very often, but it does happen, you listen to sixty percent or seventy percent of Angelina’s voice.”
“To make it believable, Angelina had to sing out loud in front of her crew and hundreds of extras in order to make it possible. Without that, none of this could happen.”
When the younger Callas sings songs like “Ave Maria” and “E che? Io son Medea” in the film, the voice is all recordings from the woman herself. The blended recordings begin to be used as Callas ages, with most of the songs in Jolie’s voice and Callas’ recordings woven throughout.
While attending the Venice Film Festival for the movie’s premiere in August, Jolie admitted she was “terribly nervous” as she prepared to sing. “I spent almost seven months training,” she said. “My first time singing, I remember being so nervous. My sons were there and they helped to block the door [so] that nobody else was coming in, and I was shaky.”
“And [director Pablo Larraín], in his decency, started me in a small room and ended me in La Scala,” she continued. “So he gave me time to grow. I was frightened to live up to [Callas].”
“Maria” is based on Callas’ life. In a review published in August, The Wrap’s Steve Pond described the film as “exquisitely beautiful but also elusive.”
Most of the film takes place over the final weeks of Callas’ life. The singer, who died at 53, was in a time when she could “no longer be the grand diva with the incomparable voice, but every move can still be imperious and royal,” Pond added.
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