Angelina Jolie Plays an Opera Singer In Her Latest Movie, but Is She Actually Singing?

She doesn't act all the time anymore, which is part of the reason that it's such a big deal every time Angelina Jolie steps in front of the camera.

Her latest role is in Maria, the newest film by Pablo Larrain. In the movie, Angelina plays opera legend Maria Callas, and early reviews have been incredibly high on her performance.

Given the fact that Maria is playing a famous singer, though, many naturally wondered whether Angelina could actually sing.

Here's what we know about whether Angelina is actually singing in Maria, and how that comes across.

Angelina is vying for an Oscar for Maria, which means that she spent nearly seven months preparing to take on the role. Part of those preparations were intensive singing lessons.

For those lessons, she turned to vocal coach Eric Vetro, who taught Austin Butler how to sing for his role in Elvis and also worked with Timothée Chalamet for his upcoming performance as Bob Dylan.

Eric, in turn, brought in a small team to help Angelina get as close to Maria as possible. She worked with two female opera teachers to help her with the singing, as well as a male coach who taught her how to sing in Italian.

Of course, all that training didn't turn Angelina into the world-class talent that Maria was. According to Vulture, though, which reviewed the film's press notes, Maria does include the sound of her voice.

The voice you hear in Maria is a mix of Angelina's voice and archival recordings of Maria, which is also the technique deployed in Bohemian Rhapsody.

It doesn't hurt, either, that Angelina is playing a version of the legendary singer who is far from the peak of her powers.

Of course, when you hear that the singing is a mix of two voices, it's easy to wonder exactly how much of each voice is in the mix. Is it 50/50, or more like 90/10 in favor of the archival recordings?

Regardless of how much of the actual singing is Angelina's, the performance that so many people are lauding makes it clear that she didn't come to play. She has already won an Oscar for her supporting performance in Girl, Interrupted, but many are now suggesting that she could be in line for her second for this performance.

Regardless of exactly how the Oscar race shakes out, though, it's clear that Angelina relished the opportunity to fully dive into this role.

“When you work with Pablo, you can’t do anything by half,” Angelina told the press at Venice. Angelina will almost definitely be helped by the narrative that she worked incredibly hard to nail every bit of the role, including the singing.

So, we may never her her performing arias on her own, but that's not what she was after anyway. She embodies the role, and even the critics who didn't like the movie found her to be magnetic.