It’s the night before the premiere of Maria—the Pablo Larraín-directed Maria Callas biopic that is already the most talked-about film at this year’s Venice Film Festival—and its star, Angelina Jolie, is feeling reflective. “I met Pablo many years ago and told him how much I respected him as a filmmaker and hoped to work with him one day,” Jolie tells Vogue of how she decided to take on this once-in-a-lifetime role. “To be asked to play Maria was an honour and the most challenging role I have ever taken on—above all, because I do feel so strongly about her as an artist and a woman that I worried about not doing her justice.”
On that, Jolie need not worry. With Maria, she delivers arguably the greatest performance in her already remarkable career, fully embodying the legendary Greek opera singer in her 1970s twilight years in Paris: her striking kohl-rimmed eyes, her fraying voice, and her tempestuous moods. To achieve it, Jolie dedicated herself to an intensive training process so that she wasn’t just delivering a portrait of Callas but instead became her, somehow. “Pablo expected me to work very hard, and he expected me to sing,” she says. “I went into classes for six or seven months to learn to really sing, to take Italian classes, to understand and study opera, to immerse [myself in it] completely and do the work. For Maria, there was no other way.” However gruelling that journey may have been, it was a process that left Jolie feeling creatively fulfilled. “I am deeply grateful to Pablo for having faith in me to do this,” she adds.
Yet there was another equally important element of Callas’s life that Jolie was fully committed to realising on screen: her style. For Callas, fashion wasn’t just the clothes she dressed in every day but an armour that allowed her to step out into an at times hostile world. As a result, Callas became a couture client to some of the greatest designers of her day, including the Italian couturier Biki, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent. (The opera star is still inspiring designers: Just look to Erdem’s fall 2024 collection, which featured gestural swoops of paint across floral gowns mimicking the designs of Salvatore Fiume’s sets in her 1953 La Scala production of Medea, accompanied by the only surviving recording of Callas speaking in Greek.)
While Jolie worked closely with Maria’s costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini on the outfits that would inform her performance, the extra sparkle that helped her embody Callas came via Cartier. Throughout her lifetime, the singer amassed an extensive collection of gems—but few were as prized as the pieces she acquired from the legendary French fine-jewellery house. One such piece is a figurative Panthère brooch made in 1971, featuring one of Cartier’s signature gold panthers (complete with emeralds for eyes) sitting atop a carved white chalcedony gemstone.
It turns out Callas’s actual brooch is now in the Cartier Collection and was worn by Jolie both in the film and at the press conference for Maria in Venice today, affixed to her black Atelier Jolie column dress. “You can imagine how special it was to wear a piece of jewellery that was hers,” Jolie tells me of both wearing the brooch during the film’s production and stepping onto the global stage to promote Maria with a little bit of Callas on her chest.
Elsewhere in the film, Jolie also wears a Rose Ouvrante 1972 flower brooch, featuring diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies, with a special mechanism that allows the petals to be opened and closed. Tonight, Jolie wore the piece for the evening premiere of Maria with a Tamara Ralph chiffon gown and faux fur stole. “I was also charmed at how it transformed from a closed flower that then blooms,” Jolie adds. “I like to think it made her smile. The little secret in the piece.”
For Cartier, it feels like a full-circle moment too. “Like so many other important women of the time, Maria Callas chose Cartier for jewellery that reflected her personality,” says Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s image, style, and heritage director, before going on to quote the iconic Mexican actor María Félix: “Cartier has always been known as the jeweller of the aristocracy of blood, but also of talent.”
Ahead of debuting her Tamara Ralph look on the red carpet at the Palazzo del Cinema tonight, Jolie noted we should expect the unexpected when it comes to her Venice wardrobe. “I chose not to copy [Maria’s] looks because they are hers, and her Venice carpets were stunning, so I gave a little nod to her—in a different way,” she says, before adding: “But I made sure to wear something ladylike in her honour.” (Earlier today, Jolie also wore a Saint Laurent dress with Grecian-style sleeves that served as a subtle homage to Callas.)
Still, having worked on this project for nearly two years, how does it feel now it’s finally out in the world? And ultimately, what does Jolie hope the audience will take from this movie? “I just hope this film helps Maria to be more understood and respected.” If Jolie’s performance is anything to go by, it will do all that and more.
This article was originally published on Vogue US.
