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Angelina Jolie fans are chomping at the bit to see her sing as opera legend Maria Callas in her new Netflix film, Maria – but they will have to wait a little longer.
Last night the streaming site dropped the trailer, which proved to be the ultimate tease as at no point did it show what everyone had come to see: the 49-year-old actress singing her heart out as the opera powerhouse.
The film, simply titled Maria – which premiered at Venice Film Festival in August to a rapturous eight-minute standing ovation and tears from Angelina – is due to be released on Netflix US in November, and will come to UK cinemas on January 10, 2025.
Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria follows the tragic, tumultuous, beautiful final days of the greatest female opera singer of all time in 1970s Paris.
Of course, Angelina looks timeless, elegant and intense in the captivating trailer – which stops short of showing her actually singing, so we will have to wait a few months to see the fruits of her seven-month vocal training programme.
‘Maria, what do you want to sing?’ asks a man at the beginning of the trailer to Callas, as Angelina strolls into a theatre with a piano before her.
Fans didn’t get to hear Angelina Jolie singing opera in the trailer for her new biopic Maria (Picture: Netflix)
It was the ultimate teaser trailer from Netflix for the film, which is landing in UK cinemas in January (Picture: Netflix)
After taking viewers through a few intense, artsy moments of Angelina as Callas, it ends with her simply saying, ‘Not today,’ in that same room and walking out again.
One clip sees the Girl, Interrupted star recreating an iconic photo of Callas, in which she cups her face in her hands in a monochrome image with her hair slicked back.
She also rocks various 60s-style hair bands with chunky earrings in a number of orange-hued shots, looking the epitome of demure while lounging on boats in various exotic locations.
Another clip shows her breaking down in tears as the tortured Callas, all dressed in black, before some epic stage shots, which see her silhouette outlined by a stage light with an audience behind.
Angelina plays opera singing legend Maria Callas (Picture: Pablo LarraÃn/Netflix)
The actress has nailed the classy air of Callas (Picture: Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche/Getty Images)
Unfortunately, though, the tease was real, as @danak2 said: ‘And of course as usual, there’s no actual singing in the trailer.’
Others took their hats off to Netflix though, as @Dreamreader12 said: ‘And this is how you do the trailer when everyone expects to hear the voice. “Not today”. I missed Angelina so much.’
@cora_melodie_ added, ‘Goosebumps,’ before saying the actress should get a second academy award for the role, after her best supporting actress gong for Girl, Interrupted, which she starred in alongside Winona Ryder in 1999.
Maria is thought to be the final film in the Chilean filmmaker’s trilogy about iconic women after 2016’s Jackie about JFK’s wife Jackie Kennedy and 2021’s Spencer about Princess Diana.
Angelina had never even done karaoke before taking on this daunting role.
She recreated some of the singer’s most iconic looks (Picture: Netflix)
If anyone can play such an icon, it’s surely Angelina (Picture: API/GAMMA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
She told reporters at Venice Film Festival that ‘the bar in this where I would know if I did good enough are the Maria Callas fans and those who love opera’ and that her ‘fear would be to disappoint them’.
The star added: ‘In my own business if there’s a response to the work, I’m very grateful, but in my heart to disappoint the people who love her and who she means a lot to, and her legacy, I came to care for her – I didn’t want to do a disservice to this woman.’
At the press conference about Maria, Angelina added that everyone in the cast and crew knew she was ‘terribly nervous’ for the premiere.
‘I spent almost seven months training because when you work with Pablo, you can’t do anything by half, he demands in the most wonderful way that you really do the work and learn and train,’ she revealed.
She also revealed that she was so nervous her first time singing that her sons ‘had to lock the door to make sure no one else was coming in’.
‘I was shaky. Pablo started me in a small room and ended me in La Scala. I was frightened,’ she admitted.
Angelina – who was previously also nominated for an Academy Awards for best actress for Changeling in 2009 – is tipped for Oscars glory as Maria, but time will tell.
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