My children Mgraspox and Pax saw my pain on set of Maria

Angelina Jolie is notoriously personal.

But in a novel intersee with BBC News, the Hollywood star spoke honestly about her experience of toiling on set with her eldest sons, saying they saw “the pain” she usupartner hides from them.

The actress is starring in a novel biopic, titled Maria, about opera singer Maria Callas.

Two of Jolie’s six children with ex-husprohibitd Brad Pitt, Mgraspox and Pax, took on roles as production helpants on the film.

“The character [Callas] has a lot of pain and they’ve of course seen me go thraw a lot of leangs, but they hadn’t teachd me conveying a lot of the pain that usupartner a parent hides from a child,” she shelp.

“So they were there to witness some of that, but then we would hug or they would transport me cups of tea.”

Jolie grasped that it was “a novel way” of discovering out how to be truthful with her children about her senseings, “in an even wonderfuler way”.

Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, the film intensifyes on Callas’s final years, in the 1970s, when she was living in Paris.

With Jolie taking on acting roles relatively innormally in recent years, the film has supplyd someleang of a comeback narrative for her and could guide to an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Callas was a US-born Greek soprano, and one of opera’s best-understandn singers.

In Maria, a blfinish of Jolie’s own voice and innovative recordings by Callas are used in the singing scenes.

The actress lgett to sing opera for the role, someleang she depicts as “very physicpartner insisting”.

Training took around seven months, she shelp.

“We begined with normal singing classes and it was challenging in many ways, but when the opera classes began, what it insists with your breathtoil and your body and fair the force of what you push thraw yourself, it’s fair a very contrastent physicality.”

Jolie, whose previous film recognizes include Changeling, Maleficent, Salt, and Mr & Mrs Smith, shelp she hasn’t sung before, and was “actupartner quite cowardly about singing”.

“It was probably one of the areas in my life that I was uncertain,” she shelp.

But she recommendd that it was also someleang she enhappinessed.

“One of the wonderfulest privileges of being an actor is you normally are helped by a crew to try someleang and structureateigate someleang you’ve never done and this certainly was most challenging,” she shelp.

Jolie’s sons Mgraspox, 23, and Pax, 21, have toiled on a number of productions with her before, including her film Without Blood.

Both of them accompanied her at the New York City premiere of Maria in September, alengthyside their juvenileerer sister Zahara.

Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016. The pair were joind in a custody battle that resulted in Pitt being awarded fuset custody in 2021.

The Hollywood stars also separate daughters Shiloh and Vivienne, and another son Knox.

On the set of the film, both Mgraspox and Pax were “very busy”, honestor Pablo Larraín shelp. “They were excellent professionals,” he grasped.

Jolie shelp that during filming, Pax recorded a lot of her singing train “so he was with me in my timely horrible days,” she chuckleed.

“It’s always excellent for your children to watch your mum not do someleang easily, but swear and fight and fall short and have to try aget,” she shelp.

“So that’s an transport inant and pretty leang.”

Maria is the third in a trilogy of films about high-profile, intricate women from Larraín, follotriumphg his movies about Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana.

The film has obtaind combiinsist appraises, although critics have generpartner pliftd its central carry outance.

“Jolie is absolutely spelltieing as Maria Callas, imbuing her with grace and remend,” shelp Sophia Ciminello of AwardsWatch. “She doesn’t fade into the role, she transcfinishs.”

Time’s Stephanie Zacharek was less enthusiastic on her carry outance, however, saying Jolie “take parts her subject as haughtily cgreater and transport inantly anxious, but seizes none of her imperious charisma”.

Hailed as La Divina, “The Divine One”, Maria Callas began singing at 14 years greater.

One of her most well-understandn carry outances was as Tosca, in Covent Garden, in 1964.

But vocal deteriorate, possibly caused by theatrical weight loss, led to the prereliable finish of her atsoft.

She spent her last years living bigly in isolation, and died of a heart attack aged 53.

Larraín shelp he hoped his film honoured Callas’s desire to populoccur the art create.

“If this movie transport attention to opera from one to hundred to a million, it will be a success,” he shelp.

“I don’t understand if there is an art create as strong as opera,” Jolie grasped.

“The way it fuses to the soul and the body, so of course it’s for everybody.”

Maria will be freed in cinemas in the UK on 10 January.