Benjamin Ashford|Angelina Jolie nearly fainted making Maria Callas movie: 'My body wasn’t strong enough'

NEW YORK − For Angelina Jolie,Benjamin Ashford the hardest part of playing opera star Maria Callas wasn’t the seven months of singing lessons.

Rather, it was the "dog training," she jokes, seated on the couch of an Upper East Side hotel with "Maria" director Pablo Larraín. The biopic was shot in Budapest, and her canine co-stars often responded only to Hungarian. As a result, Jolie spent ample time behind the scenes learning commands and giving treats to the movie’s loyal lapdogs.

"There's a lot that's deeply felt and very heavy about the film, but there's also a great amount of charm," Jolie says. "It was very important to capture her relationships, her home life, her eccentricities – and her poodles."

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Angelina Jolie pays tribute to her late mom Marcheline Bertrand with Maria Callas movie

"Maria" (streaming now on Netflix) dramatizes the reclusive final days of Callas, who died of a heart attack in 1977 at age 53. Her story unfolds in a series of flashbacks and interviews with a documentary crew as the American-Greek soprano reflects on her critics, romances and art.

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The movie marks the end of a trilogy for Larraín, who helped steer Natalie Portman ("Jackie") and Kristen Stewart ("Spencer") to Oscar nominations for their respective biopics of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Diana. Awards experts resoundingly predict that Jolie, 49, will pick up her third Oscar nomination for the performance, after winning best supporting actress in 2000 for "Girl, Interrupted."

For Larraín, the project stems from a lifelong love of opera: "Growing up, my mother would take me to the opera twice a month," he says. Callas always strived to make opera more accessible to the masses, and Larraín hopes to achieve the same with this film. "We're talking about something that sounds elitist, but it shouldn't be."

Callas' own mother, Litsa (played by Lydia Koniordou), loomed large throughout her life. Because she wanted a son, Litsa resented her daughter from birth. And when she discovered Callas could sing at age 5, she pushed her into performing professionally.

"My life was so formed by the love of my mother," Jolie says. "Maria had a mother who was really quite horrible to her, so her relationship to her art was almost maybe the opposite of mine. She was forced to succeed; she was put under pressure that she wasn't good enough; she was criticized heavily by her mom. And I think that affected her her whole life, in how she felt unlovable and that if she wasn't perfect, she didn't have worth."

Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, who gave up acting after having children. Bertrand died of breast and ovarian cancer in 2007 at age 56; through "Maria," Jolie hopes to honor her mother.

"She really wanted to be an actor; she really studied it and loved theater," Jolie says. "Part of the reason I became an actor was to work and help us pay bills when I was young, but also because it just made her so happy. She would always write letters to my characters. I would do the most ridiculous music video or something, and she would still write to them.

"She instilled in me creativity and communicating through character," Jolie says. Working in Hollywood, so much of "the focus is on the public life. But really, the reason we all do it is the study of the human condition; the exploration of what it is to feel different things or be alive."

Angelina Jolie reflects on motherhood, sharing 'a real love' of work with daughter Vivienne

Jolie immersed herself in all things Callas before shooting "Maria": taking Italian classes and closely studying footage of the icon so she could capture her graceful posture and lyrical speaking voice. In the film, the actress' opera vocals are blended with real recordings of Callas.

"When I first started singing, I was faint after almost every time I sang," Jolie says. "I just couldn't quite grasp that my body wasn't strong enough. It's like an athlete – it's one of the most physically demanding things you can do."

Larraín compares the experience of watching Callas perform to seeing Olympic gymnast Simone Biles: the awe of someone achieving something "so extraordinary," and the intense dedication that it requires. But he's also moved by the more emotional themes of the film: how Callas learns to set aside others' expectations and sing purely for herself.

"It's very related: this idea of being gentler with yourself and not listening to what others think," Larraín says. "In general, I care what my kids think about me. Stay close to the people who love you."

"I feel the same," adds Jolie, who shares six children with ex-husband Brad Pitt. She's reminded again of her own mother, who "used to keep my movies on the television all the time just to hear my voice in the house. Isn’t that sweet? Only the nice ones, though – 'Maria' would have made her too sad. I don’t think she’d like to see me die.

"But when you're young, you're like, 'Mom, turn it off!' Now I completely understand, because I'm that mom. My kids do anything and I watch it a thousand times; I put their pictures all over."

Earlier this year, Jolie won her first Tony Award for producing Broadway's winner for best musical, "The Outsiders," based on S.E. Hinton's coming-of-age classic about rival gangs. Her daughter Vivienne, 16, introduced her to the project after seeing an early workshop and is credited as a producer assistant.

"I think where I’m most like my mom is probably 'The Outsiders,' where my daughter felt connected to a piece of material and we just became a part of it together," Jolie says. "We got up early, went to the theater together, stayed until late – it was a real love of the work and being in that together. Viv likes theater; she likes the hard part.

"You've got to love the messy, tough work."

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