Angelina Jolie Learned to Sing Opera for her role in Maria

A few weeks ago, I read a deep dive into Angelina Jolie's experience filming Maria, an upcoming biopic of opera singer Maria Callas. Jolie mentioned that she learned to sing opera for the role, something she found so intimidating that she enlisted her sons to help guard the doors to keep people from entering the room she was rehearsing in. 

Clearly, Jolie found a way to overcome her understandable fear and blossom in the role. Her performance has already been celebrated at the Venice Film Festival; I won't be surprised if both the movie and Jolie herself are seen as resounding successes. 

Maria is director Pablo Larraín's third installment in a series of films about impactful women who have had to fight through overwhelming fear (he previously directed Natalie Portman in 2016's Jackie and Kristen Stewart in 2021's Spencer). With Maria, Larraín has demonstrated without a doubt that he can tap into what it takes for a woman to reach inside herself and conquer an obstacle that can only be described as insurmountable — and to do so while taking care of children, balancing a career, and, in the case of the three women he's made movies about, living up to the fact and fiction surrounding their lives.

I wrestle with fear all the time. Just when one area of life seems to settle and become organized, another area starts to spiral out sideways. If I'm not careful, I can quickly become consumed by it. I find myself afraid of so much sometimes: What will my son's life be like in 5, 10, 15 years? What if that job doesn't work out? What if I can't find an editor who wants to place that piece?

But I've found that often, just as quickly, I can become consumed by overcoming that fear, too, simply because, most of the time, I have to. I have no idea what my son's future holds (and that's exciting in many ways). So far, in my nearly 40 years, jobs have typically worked out — though whether or not it's the job I initially thought I wanted that ends up working out is a different story. And, happily, I get a piece placed more often than not, assuming it's genuinely something worth reporting on in the first place.

I'm looking forward to seeing Maria, just like I looked forward to Jackie and then to Spencer. Only recently did I learn that the same director brought all three stories to light; of the three women, Callas is the one I know the least about. Like Jackie and Diana, she was described and perceived as both vulnerable and powerful, a woman with an unmatched impact on those around her (not to mention her legion of fans).

It makes me wonder how many of us could be — or perhaps already are — that woman in our own lives, in our own circles, if only we could shed the harbinger of fear. When I look back on things I was most afraid of, it seems that when so many of them actually came to transpire, I was able to work through what had once felt scary and insurmountable. I have to think that this is the first necessary step toward being a more fearless woman in general.

I'm about to be 40 and hope to enjoy at least another 40-50 years on this planet. I'm greeting my next decades with an open heart that is willing to trust in what I can't yet see or understand — a heart that is unafraid.