ANGELINA JOLIE SPENT ‘ALMOST SEVEN MONTHS' TRAINING TO SING OPERA IN ‘MARIA': ‘I HAD NOT SUNG IN PUBLIC' BEFORE AND ‘WAS TERRIBLY NERVOUS'

Angelina Jolie detailed her preparation to play opera icon Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín's "Maria" at its Venice Film Festival press conference, saying she trained for "almost seven months."

Reuniting Larraín and writer Steven Knight - whose last project, "Spencer," bowed in Venice in 2021 - the film tells the "tumultuous, beautiful, and tragic story of the life of the world's greatest opera singer, relived and reimagined during her final days in 1970s Paris."

"Everybody here knows, I was terribly nervous," she said of singing opera. "I spent almost seven months training because when you work with Pablo you can't do anything by half. He demands, in the most wonderful way, that you really do the work and you really learn and train."

Jolie said she "had not sung in public" before, which added to the pressure when filming packed theater scenes at Paris' La Scala theater.

"My first time singing I remember being so nervous. My sons were there and they helped lock the door so that nobody else was coming in, and I was shaky," she said. "Pablo, in his decency, started me in a small room and ended me in La Scala. So he gave me time to grow."

Alongside Jolie, "Maria" stars Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Stephen Ashfield and Valeria Golino.

Callas was an American-born Greek soprano singer and one of the most famous opera singers of the 20th century. She was born in Manhattan and received her opera training in Greece when she was 13 and later moved to Italy for her career. Throughout the years, she dealt with near-sightedness that left her nearly blind and multiple scandals in her personal and professional life. She had an intense rivalry with Italian opera singer Renata Tebaldi, plus an affair with Aristotle Onassis (who later married Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who coincidentally was the subject of Larraín's film "Jackie").