It’s been years since Angelia Jolie has done the full film festival circuit. She’s currently in Venice, and from there she’ll go to Telluride for more promotion for Maria, and then she’s going to Toronto right after that for Without Blood. On Thursday, Angelina sat down for the big Venice Film Festival press conference, where entertainment reporters from around the world tried to find some angle to get Angelina to speak about Brad Pitt. She avoided their traps! Quick fashion note: her black dress here is Saint Laurent, and she also wore a vintage Cartier brooch.

On the potential Oscar campaign: “For me, the bar in this where I would know if I did good enough are the Maria Callas fans and those who love opera, and my fear would be to disappoint them, so of course all other things and 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.”

Angelina spent seven months training for this role: Jolie spent more than half a year studying opera and training her voice, and the film uses a multilayered track to meld the actual voice of Callas in her prime with Jolie’s more novice soprano, but if there are seams here, you can’t feel them. At times, Jolie was singing out loud by herself in front of up to 500 extras during flashbacks to a younger, less deteriorated Callas. Jolie, when asked for her favorite opera or karaoke song, said, “I’d never sung before, so I’ve never done karaoke. Everybody here knows, I was terribly nervous. 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, but my first time singing? I remember being so nervous, my sons were there, they 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.”

Her own musical taste: “I was more punk. I loved all music but I probably listened to The Clash more than most, and as I’ve gotten older, classical music, opera. I think there’s something I still love about the same music I did when I was younger. I’ll still listen to The Clash, when you’ve felt a certain level of despair, of pain, of love. At a certain point there are only certain sounds that can match that feeling, and to me the immensity of the feeling encapsulated within the sounds of opera, there’s nothing like it. And that feeling that would move all of us if we were to hear it, would be the only sound if we were to explain that pain.”

Angelina’s personal life: Throughout the press conference, Jolie fielded questions she danced around about how her own widely publicized personal life influenced her performance as a woman who was stalked by fans and paparazzi throughout her career. “Well, there’s a lot I won’t say in this room, which you probably know or assume,” she said, before noting “the way I related to her, maybe a surprise, was probably the part of her that’s extremely soft and doesn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was — as emotionally open as she truly was…I share her vulnerability more than anything.”

Working on the opera pieces: Jolie has described the process of learning to sing opera as “the therapy I didn’t realize I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out. And so the challenge wasn’t the technical, it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”

[From IndieWire and THR]

Everything that I’m reading about Angelina’s preparation for the role has just screamed “Oscar” to me. I also appreciate that they’re not trying to convince anyone that Angelina became a legitimate opera singer in seven months. They’re being very open about what was done, that Angelina trained and really sang on set, but that her vocals are being mixed with real recordings from Callas. This isn’t “she learned how to be a prima ballerina in five months.” IYKYK. Jolie also isn’t making huge “I’m launching an Oscar campaign” moves, other than promoting Maria at film festivals. She’s not on any magazine covers (there’s still time), she’s not putting herself out there as needing a nomination or anything (she already has two Oscars). Hell, Maria only got distribution this week. So… if a campaign does happen, it will be interesting to see what Angelina does and how she plays it.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.