Angelina Jolie to Play Opera Singer Maria Callas: ‘I Will Give All I Can to Meet the Challenge’

Angelina Jolie is teaming up with Spencer and Jackie director Pablo Larraín for the new movie Maria

Angelina Jolie found her next role.

On Friday, it was announced that Jolie, 47, will star as American-born Greek opera singer Maria Callas in director Pablo Larraín’s next film, Maria.

The upcoming movie will be based on true accounts and tell the “tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the life of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and reimagined during her final days in 1970s Paris,” according to a press release.

Steven Knight — who wrote Larraín’s 2021 film Spencer, which starred Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana — penned the screenplay for the upcoming movie.

“I take very seriously the responsibility to Maria’s life and legacy. I will give all I can to meet the challenge,” said Jolie, who is currently in post-production on her fifth film as director, Without Blood. “Pablo Larraín is a director I have long admired. To be allowed the chance to tell more of Maria’s story with him, and with a script by Steven Knight, is a dream.”

“Having the chance to combine my two most deep and personal passions, cinema and opera, has been a long-awaited dream,” said Larraín. “To do this with Angelina, a supremely brave and curious artist, is a fascinating opportunity. A true gift.”

Callas, an American-Greek opera performer whose vocal range covered three octaves, died in 1977 of a heart attack at age 53 while in Paris, according to The Guardian.

Director Larraín’s 2016 film Jackie, which starred Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, earned its star a Best Actress Oscar nomination, while Stewart was nominated for the same award at this past year’s Academy Awards for Spencer.

Callas’ life is notably linked to the subject of Jackie, as the opera singer had a relationship with Aristotle Onassis, whom Kennedy married in October 1968, nearly five years after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Swedish star Noomi Rapace was previously cast to play the opera singer back in 2015 for a movie called Callas from Mulan director Niki Caro.

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