By Anna Menta
Published
Dec. 11, 2024, 10:00 a.m. ET
Photo: Netflix, Getty Images
Angelina Jolie’s new Netflix movie, Maria —which began streaming today—marks the third based-on-a-true-story movie from director Pablo Larraín about a famous, tragic woman. First was Jackie , the 2016 drama about Jacqueline Kennedy, followed by Spencer , 2021’s Princess Diana biopic. But Maria—about the legendary Greek opera singer Maria Callas—might be the story that American audiences are least familiar with.
Directed by Larraín, with a script by Steven Knight (who also wrote Spencer), Maria stars Angelina Jolie as Callas in the final days of her life, when she was living in near-isolation in Paris in the 1970s. Also starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Aggelina Papadopoulou, Maria opts to zoom in on one chapter of the great singer’s life, rather than give viewers a complete overview.
For some, this movie might be the first introduction the iconic Greek opera singer. With that in mind, here’s what you need to know about the real Maria Callas and how accurate Maria is to the true story.
Photo: Netflix
Is the Angelina Jolie Netflix movie Maria based on a true story?
Yes, Maria is based on the true story of Greek opera singer Maria Callas, who died of a heart attack in 1977, when she was only 53 years old. Maria imagines the last few days of Callas’s life, in which once the once-great opera singer struggles with a drug addiction, hallucinations, and her declining health.
Photo: Netflix
How accurate is the Maria movie to the true story of Maria Callas?
Like most Hollywood movies based on a true story, Maria exaggerates, imagines, and condenses aspects of real life in order to create a more compelling movie. Because much of the movie takes place over Callas’s final days—a time when the opera singer was living in near-isolation in Paris—much of those scenes and dialogue are pure speculation on the part of director Pablo Larraín and screenwriter Steven Knight. That said, all of this speculation was built on research.
“We did a lot of research on Maria’s life and the end of her life, how the interactions of the operas she sang could create parallels with her own life,” Larraín said in an interview for the Maria press notes.
In that same interview for the press notes, writer Knight said he was “given researchers who helped me unearth the more remote and unknown elements of Maria’s life.” That included “first-hand testimony” from Callas’s former butler, Ferrucio Mezzadri, who is played by Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino in the movie. “I always find the memories of living witnesses to real
events are worth more than anything you can gain from text,” Knight said.
Photo: Pablo Larrain / © Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
In her interview for the Maria press notes, Angelina Jolie said that the real Ferrucio was very protective of Callas. “Ferruccio the butler, who Pierfrancesco plays, he’s still alive, and he’s never sold stories about Maria to the press,” Jolie said. He shared some thoughts and stories with us but didn’t want to come to set. It’s beautiful to know that she had a few people at the end of her life who really loved her.”
It is also true, apparently, that in the final weeks of her life, Callas was trying to build back her voice. It’s not clear why she was doing this, but the filmmakers imagined that, perhaps, she was doing it for herself. “Pablo and I picked up on the true fact that shortly before she died, she was in the process of trying to rebuild her voice but without any real intention of performing for other people,” Knight said. “Perhaps she wanted to die whole, in one piece, her self and her voice reunited.”
Photo: Ossinger/picture alliance via Getty Images
The production also meticulously recreated Callas’s real-life Paris apartment as closely as they could.
“After visiting Maria’s real life apartment, Pablo and I knew we wanted our set to be as faithful as possible,” said production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas in an interview for the press notes. “We closely referenced Maria’s real-life decor, drawing from photographs in publications like Paris Match and Vogue, as well as archival footage from her iconic interviews with Pierre Desgraupes for the National Agency of French Television and Radio.”
Dyas continued, “There was a clear aesthetic distinction between Maria’s private spaces—such as her kitchen, bedroom, and dressing room—and the areas where she entertained guests, studied, and worked.”
Photo: Pablo Larrain / © Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection
For some of the flashbacks sequences involving Callas’s relationship with real-life business magnate Aristotle Onassis (played in the film by Haluk Bilginer), the production even faithfully recreated Callas’s own archived footage.
According to cinematographer Edward Lachman in an interview for the film press notes, “There’s an aspect of the film where we’re recreating her home movies, where Maria is with the people who were closest to her, she’s with Aristotle Onassis on his yacht, etc. I had the real home movies to reference.”
But perhaps the biggest aspect of the movie that was invented purely for the film was Kodi Smit-McPhee’s character, an interviewer called “Mandrax,” who Jolie’s character hallucinates while on an addictive, psycho-active sedative, Methaqualone (sometimes known under the brand name, Mandrax).
Photo: Pablo Larrain / © Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection
While there have been reports that Callas suffered from a degenerative disease that she was treating with cortisone and immunosuppressants—which can increase the risk of heart failure, which was her official cause of death—there is not any official public record of Callas taking Mandrax, which was called “Quaaludes” in the U.S. That said, the drug was commonly abused in Europe in the ’70s, leading to its discontinuation in the mid-80s. A Methaqualone overdose can, reportedly, result in cardiac arrest.
So while it’s not an unreasonable leap, it still is speculation. And certainly, the idea that Callas hallucinated an interviewer named after the drug she might have been taking is all made up. But it makes for an interesting movie!