DESPITE being one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, with six children and three marriages under her belt, Angelina Jolie says she suffers “loneliness”.
In a candid new interview, the actress revealed she struggles to live life on her own eight years on from her infamous and messy split from Brad Pitt.
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Speaking at an upmarket hotel in London on Saturday night, the 49-year-old actress reflected on her need for companionship ahead of the release of her new biopic, Maria.
Dressed in black, Angelina looked relaxed as she spoke about her remarkable portrayal of the late opera star Maria Callas, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination last week.
She revealed that feeling “alone” was the trait she most shared with the singer, who died in 1977 with just staff as close friends.
Angelina says: “I have my children I love but as an adult I’m often alone. I find myself identifying with the solitude and loneliness she has.
“I also haven’t quite figured out how to live life in a way where I’m on my own.
“Maybe a lot of artists feel that we’re in an open space as a person.
“We don’t quite settle. So it leaves us in a strange way sometimes.”
Maria, which was written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, is Angelina’s first film in more than three years.
She has cut a reflective figure on her return to the spotlight, with her comments suggesting a rumoured relationship with Brit rapper Akala, 41, has already cooled.
‘Someone hurt me’
Last week she told Variety magazine that the film was like “therapy” for her and that she had “lost her voice” after her mother Marcheline Bertrand died in 2007 and “someone hurt me”.
Angelina went further than that in London’s Soho at the weekend, saying that she felt all of Maria’s emotional turmoil while acting.
She says: “When I’m up there crying, that’s my pain, that’s my grief.”
There is no doubt that the end of Angelina’s marriage to Brad has been a painful one, with the pair trading barbs via lawyers and sources, especially in their ongoing dispute over their French vineyard.
The couple’s attitude to new relationships has markedly differed since their romance, which lasted more than a decade, came to a bitter end following a bust up on a flight in 2016.
While Brad, 60, has been seen with a string of beautiful women and appears to have settled down with businesswoman Ines de Ramon, his ex has not been pictured arm in arm with a new man.
Instead, Angelina is said to have devoted her time to bringing up her large brood.
This is the longest spell in the Tomb Raider star’s life without a significant other, having gone from ending her 18-month marriage to first husband Jonny Lee Miller, with their divorce finalised in 1999, to marrying her next one, Billy Bob Thornton, one year later.
Dating Brad
That lasted until 2003, and two years later she started dating Brad.
She has also taken a step back from her career to look after her kids Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 16.
The Netflix film, which will also be released in cinemas, is the perfect role for Angelina, who can empathise with more than just Callas’s loneliness.
Both women struggled with drug addictions, have had their weight discussed publicly and endured high-profile romantic break-ups.
Callas was married to rich Italian businessman Giovanni Battista Meneghini when the even wealthier Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis seduced her.
According to the movie, Maria aborted the child she was due to have with Onassis before being usurped by an even more famous beauty, Jackie Kennedy.
She was ill often, she couldn’t see, she didn’t feel love, she was scared, she was wanting to escape her pain in her life with narcotics
Angelina Jolie
Angelina describes Maria as “a little girl wanting to have a boy love her”.
In later life Callas grew increasingly dependent on drugs, including steroids to suppress her appetite and the mind-altering sedative Mandrax, which was also often referred to as a quaalude.
Angelina has admitted that in her youth she tried “every drug possible” including the deadly heroin and was lucky to survive.
In the movie, Maria hallucinates after taking Mandrax and the actress says the role was “sometimes a bit trippy in my mind”.
Angelina continues: “She was ill often, she couldn’t see, she didn’t feel love, she was scared, she was wanting to escape her pain in her life with narcotics.”
The opera legend’s drug dependency is believed to have led to her fatal heart attack.
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Having faced a life-long battle with her weight, her slender body was unable to cope with the cocktail of substances she was swallowing on a daily basis.
As a child her mother cruelly favoured her slimmer sister and as she developed as an opera star, Maria’s weight increased to 17st.
But she dropped six of them in 1954 in a bid to please theatre directors and to look more like the stars of the era such as Audrey Hepburn.
‘Completely vulnerable’
It is a transformation that will not be lost on Angelina, whose weight loss has also been the subject of fan speculation, with some insiders suggesting it has been fuelled by the stress of her divorce.
“For the people in Angie’s world, there’s still an ongoing worry, but they know better now than to bring it up,” a source recently told a US news site.
“She’s made it very clear this is her life, her body, and nobody’s to question her about it any more.”
I have my children I love but as an adult I’m often alone. I identify with the loneliness Maria Callas has… but when I’m up there on screen crying, that’s my pain, that’s my grief
Angelina Jolie
Angelina will be even more open to scrutiny in the new year, when her multi-million pound court battle with Brad over ownership of the Chateau Miraval vineyard finally goes to trial.
While Jolie might feel “alone,” unlike Brad, she does have her children by her side.
Angelina was seen in Paris this month with Pax and Zahara who visited while she was filming her next movie Stitches.
Recently she worked with Vivienne on a Broadway stage musical and last month she attended the Governors Awards in Los Angeles with Knox.
Brad, on the other hand, is said to rarely see his older children and Pax called the heartthrob a “world-class a**hole” in a social media post.
Angelina has claimed he was abusive to her and their children.
Brad, who was cleared following an investigation into the row on the plane involving son Maddox, has always denied being abusive.
But it is rumoured that none of the kids will be with him at Christmas or when he celebrates his birthday on Wednesday.
Now that her children are older, Angelina is able to spend more time working.
Maleficent 3 and two other movies are in the pipeline.
For Maria, Angelina had to spend seven months learning to sing and felt faint while belting out the tunes as she didn’t realise such strong lungs were necessary when she signed up for the role.
She says: “I had not sung for a film. And I didn’t realise when I first took the job that I’d really be singing.
For the people in Angie’s world, there’s still an ongoing worry, but they know better now than to bring it up,” a source recently told a US news site
A source
“I thought it would be a certain level of movie singing and I would get away with something.”
Angelina had previously been told by someone close to her that she couldn’t sing.
That made the task of standing on a stage, without piano accompaniment, in front of a film crew even more daunting.
She concludes: “I was terrified and I was completely vulnerable.”
She will need that strength if she’s going to get through her next blockbuster — a Hollywood court showdown — alone.
- Maria is in cinemas on January 10.