Angelina Jolie went through some intense prep for her role as the late opera singer Maria Callas in Maria.
For seven months, she took Italian, piano, and singing classes to play the music legend the best she could. And, while the process of transforming into someone else for the screen can certainly be heavy and exhausting, Jolie told W in a new interview that her children keep her grounded.
“I was very ‘in it’ when I was in it,” she said, explaining that the film’s director, Pablo
Larraín, and the team, “treated me like a singer—which really meant a lot to me.”
“I had pianos wherever I went, my coaches, my exercises, and every night I was practicing for the next performance,” she continued. “But I’m different because I’m a mom, so I was able to step away from a heavy day at work and think about something else.”
Jolie is mom to six kids with ex-husband Brad Pitt (the two recently finalized their divorce, eight years after their separation): Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and fraternal twins Vivienne and Knox, 16.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jolie discussed her character (a classic Gemini), how she got into acting (because of her mom), her secret skill (being a pilot), and her pet peeve. Of the last, she said: “So many things. But my pet peeve is somebody who is a liar. Somebody who feels a need to not say the truth or what they want, what they feel. There’s a big version of that—and I’m not trying to be heavy about it—but people who say one thing and mean another, who aren’t completely who they are. I think a lot of people don’t say what they mean.”
