Angelina Jolie will star in Oscar-nominated director Pablo Larraín’s next film, a biopic about famed opera singer Maria Callas.
Titled “Maria,” the film “tells the tumultuous, beautiful and tragic life story of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and reimagined in her final days in 1970s Paris,” according to its logline. Steven Knight (“Spencer,” “Peaky Blinders,” “Eastern Promises”) wrote the screenplay.
Callas was an American 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. All these years, she was dealing with nearsightedness that left her almost blind and multiple scandals in her personal and professional life. He had a heated rivalry with Italian opera singer Renata Tebaldi, as well as an affair with Aristotle Onassis (who later married Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who coincidentally was the subject of Larraín’s film Jackie).
“Having the opportunity to combine my two deepest and most personal passions, cinema and opera, has been a long-awaited dream,” said Larraín. “Doing this with Angelina, an incredibly brave and quirky artist, is an exciting opportunity. A true gift.”
“I take responsibility for Maria’s life and legacy very seriously. I will give my best to meet the challenge. Pablo Larraín is a director I have long admired. To be given the opportunity to tell more of Maria’s story with him, and with a script by Stephen Knight, is a dream come true,” Jolie said.
Larraín’s two previous biopics, last year’s “Spencer” starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana and 2016’s “Jackie” starring Natalie Portman as Kennedy Onassis, both earned best actress nominations for both leads. The acclaimed director also received an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film for the 2012 Chilean historical drama No, the first nod for the country.
“Maria” is produced by Juan de Dios Larraín for Fabula Pictures, Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle Company and Jonas Dornbach for Komlizen Film.
Jolie is repped by WME and attorneys Robert Offer and Lindsey Strasberg at Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern.
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