Angelina Jolie and Cynthia Erivo gave it their all this year — both on screen and off — tapping into their inner strength via the extensive work that went into pulling off their roles in "Maria" and "Wicked," two of 2024's biggest hits which landed them Golden Globe nominations for their stunning performances.
In a 30-minute "Actors on Actors" conversation for Variety, Jolie and Erivo discussed their experience with holding grace through suffering, which they can relate to as people and used to flesh out their portrayals of Maria Callas and Elphaba, respectively.
Complimenting Jolie's embodiment of an end-of-career Callas, Erivo says, "She never feels sorry for herself," which is an observation that Jolie thanks her for noticing.
"That's what breaks your heart, you know? Because she's still fighting," Erivo says. "And it's really beautiful to watch that because we don't get that very often in our woman characters. We want them to falter a little."
"There's a push to . . . you're a good woman if you're apologizing . . . some people see it as just strength but it's not," Jolie says. "It's holding your grace as a woman. It doesn't mean you're not suffering . . . but you're not leaning on the self-pity."
Going more into the similarities between their two characters in relation to holding grace through suffering, Jolie and Erivo went into a touching back and forth about how both Callas and Elphaba lacked the warmth and support of a loving mother.
"Maria didn't have a mother that loved her and told her that she was enough as she was," Jolie says. "Both of our characters come from being alone since they were little. Feeling a little different."
"And never expecting that anyone would give anything freely . . . love freely," Erivo added to this.
"Just no trust. A lot of just you and you alone," Jolie continued on the topic. "And that at the end of the day, it's only gonna be you. And so any little kindness means everything."
"I think there's this wonderful comparison of understanding the loneliness they both have to experience," Erivo says. "Because of that, they somehow have a really big capacity to love. So when it comes to them, they're both really open to it, however it needs to be reciprocated."
"I think it's true for a lot of strong women," Jolie adds. "I think there's the idea that we don't want care and kindness and softness and love, and it's so much the opposite. It's just that it has to be proven to be true."
Elsewhere in their discussion, Jolie talks about finding her voice again while learning how to belt out Callas' music, and there's a lot in the subtext of that statement. Still dealing with a divorce from Brad Pitt that's seen her in and out of court for nearly a decade, there's the sense that owning the screen in "Maria" helped her to own herself again.
Watch their full discussion here:
