Angelina Jolie finally did a Vanity Fair “Awards Insider” interview. Every awards-season hopeful does these but she had been avoiding it for some reason. She ended up calling in from Paris, where she’s working on Alice Winocour’s film Stitches. She spoke about working on a French film, and she spoke a lot about Maria Callas and what this journey has been like, promoting Maria for months. VF also got her to talk about the 25th anniversary of Girl, Interrupted too. As a special treat. Some highlights:

Most of her dialogue in ‘Stitches’ is in French. “I’m not fluent—I speak a bit, but…to mean every word and give a performance takes a different kind of understanding about what it is I’m saying, to be emotional and not think about the language. It’s a different challenge.”

Why ‘Maria’ felt like a homecoming for her as an actress & artist: “I wasn’t myself for a while, so I wasn’t able to give as much to my work for a few years. To feel like I could work again and communicate and to be with nice people—so much of what I do is collaboration with other artists. When it goes well, you’re creating together. When you’re with nice people and creative people, you learn so much about yourself and about life. You’re in a safe place to play and stretch.”

It feels meaningful to be doing this kind of work again: “It really does. Probably more than I can even express. If no one receives your piece, or if you don’t connect, then it’s like shouting in the dark. It means a lot that people have responded to Maria. I’ve always felt, ever since I was very young, that film has been a way to communicate with the world and not feel as alone. We’re all going through this human condition and this life. So it’s very, very healing to be able to be a part of these films and to talk to you about this and to live that way. And I missed it. I realized I did really miss it. I missed being an artist.

Going dark: “I went very dark for reasons I’d rather not explain, but I didn’t have a lot of light and life within me. Your light’s dim. I also just needed to be home more, so I couldn’t commit large periods of time to pieces. The choice of what to work on and when was not a creative choice, often, the last few years, but sometimes the practical choice. Really, I think Maria was the beginning of starting to come alive again. I needed a lot of kind people around me to hold my hand. I know I say it too often, but our business can be a lot of things. At the end of the day, we’re very fortunate to do what we do, and we are spending a lot of time with big, deep, emotional feelings. If you don’t do that with people who you’re safe with, it can affect you in very bad ways.

Shooting ‘Maria’ was a heavy experience: “It was heavy. Maria was a very full experience. I wasn’t able to leave her on set like you sometimes do. Part of that was because I was always doing training after [shooting] anyway; there was always a next aria. But it was all leading towards the death, and the death was the last thing we shot. I’m almost 50, and my mom had cancer when she was 48. You’re actually thinking about death, about things that cause you grief or that you have lost in your life.

25 years since Girl, Interrupted: “I remember that I didn’t think of [Lisa] as crazy and that she was a real person. She needed to be loved, and she felt alone, and she wanted truth. I only saw it once—it’s hard for me to talk about it because I saw it once 25 years ago—but from my memory, she wanted someone to be honest with her and to connect, and somehow ended up feeling very, very alone in that way—not dissimilar to Maria. Not finding somebody who understood her enough, not finding a way forward where she was okay. Is this a theme? That I’m alone? What is this? [Laughs] There’s probably some very tragic thing that I don’t want to address right now, but—yeah.

How she related to Lisa: “Even if they thought they were complimenting me playing Lisa, they were complimenting me playing a crazy person. That did make me sad because I didn’t think of her that way, and I didn’t like hearing I was referred to that way. But it was also a time where I was still trying to understand myself, and maybe there was something about me that I was not understanding—about what people consider crazy. I mean, that’s the honest truth. The honest truth was during that time when you’re trying to figure yourself out and you’re young and you’re a bit wild and strong and curious and emotional—and people say, “No, that’s crazy. She’s crazy. You’re crazy.” It probably just isolated me more and made me think I must be different. Maybe I’m dark, or maybe I’m off, or maybe I’m not what people want me to be either.

Taking ‘Maria’ to Venice: “It was a funny thing bringing her to Venice because she was in Venice—we even say it in the film; Onassis talks about seeing her in the Venice Film Festival. I was trying to figure out what to wear, and there were pictures of her in Venice wearing little fur; that’s why I wore a little fake fur. It was strange. And I sing in Italian and I’m in Italy; how’s that going to go? These are people that really know these arias, and this is an art form that is very respected and understood here. I was very excited for those reasons to bring it to Venice and very nervous. When it was received well, when you felt the room appreciated it, it was a huge relief. Then when you’re with people you love, you look around at the faces of the artists that you worked with, and it’s a beautiful moment.

She’d like to do a comedy! “I just wrote to a friend of mine today, Eunice, who’s in Liverpool, and she said, “Why aren’t you doing—you should do something funny.” I wrote back and I said, “I’d like to find something funny,” but I’m not sure. I’m never sure how funny I am. I would love to do something fun and light. I think I’d have to be the straight man. I feel like that’s what I am. I get that. In Maleficent, it was like, Okay, I’ll be the straight person. There are so many wonderful directors I’d love to have a chance to work with. I’d like to just be allowed to play in this arena. I’d love for people to reach out and be willing to invite me to play with them and create with them. So we’ll see. Yeah, comedy, maybe.

[From Vanity Fair]

“Your light’s dim. I also just needed to be home more, so I couldn’t commit large periods of time to pieces. The choice of what to work on and when was not a creative choice, often, the last few years, but sometimes the practical choice.” I get that, and we knew it as it was happening, that she was taking work which would shoot quickly or smaller roles where she could do her part in a month or so. After she left Brad Pitt, she really just needed to be home with her kids and heal, but she also needed money and I’m glad that people were still giving her those roles and projects. I really hope that Maria represents the next era of her career, where she gets back to acting regularly and takes on bigger roles in bigger films. Also: crazy that she was nervous about going to Venice, because the Italians were obsessed with her. She was met with a rapturous response in Venice and elsewhere.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.