Hollywood star Angelina Jolie says that due to her global fame she has not been able to “just enjoy” being an artist.
The Oscar-winning actress, 49, was nominated for a Golden Globe for best actress in a motion picture on Monday for playing the late opera star Maria Callas in the self-titled biopic.
Jolie, who took Italian classes and studied opera for the role, has expressed how being in the 2024 movie Maria has changed her outlook on how she views her craft.
She told the Radio Times: “I haven’t allowed myself to just enjoy (being an artist), because things become about celebrity or business.
“It is a gift to be allowed to live a life as an artist, and this role has helped make me rediscover art and being an artist.
“I am rediscovering that through Maria.”
She also said that she does not know if interviews nowadays protect stars or have “turned into something cheaper” than when American-Greek soprano Callas was alive.
Jolie added: “When you think about the old interviews there was a fuller conversation that was able to be had.
“I watched Callas’ really old interviews and they spent hours talking to her about her craft. Nobody’s ever done that for me. She was taken seriously.”
For decades, the US actress has regularly been a feature of the annual Forbes list of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, making the top of the list at various points.
Jolie is also known for blockbusters such as Maleficent, Mr & Mrs Smith and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider along with her Academy Award-winning supporting actress performance in Girl, Interrupted and Oscar-nominated leading role in Changeling.
In her new film Maria, Callas’ final days in 1970s Paris are reimagined, exploring the tragic events in the life of one of the world’s best-known sopranos.
In recent years, Jolie and her former husband Brad Pitt have been involved in a long-running legal battle following her filing for divorce in September 2016.
She has six children with Pitt with one of them, a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, becoming the first to request a legal name change in May.
For more see the Radio Times Christmas issue or radiotimes.com/movies/angelina-jolie-maria-callas/.
