While Jolie stars as Callas in Maria, Jolie's sons Maddox and Pax worked as production assistants on the film. "They were able to consider the relationships in the film and the violence," Jolie said. "Things that sometimes you don’t have the opportunity to discuss with your sons, so I felt fortunate."

Netflix film Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín from a Steven Knight screenplay, sees Jolie playing the American-Greek soprano in her final days in Paris, as the diva reckons with her identity and life after a glamorous and tumultuous life in the public eye. In real life, Callas died of a heart attack at her Paris home in 1977 at age 53.

“Maria,” Pablo Larraín’s cinematic portrait of opera legend Maria Callas, arrives as the third of the director’s films centered on iconic women of the 20th century.

Finding the breath of Maria Callas was enough to bring things out of Jolie that she didn’t even know were in her.

Oscar winner Angelina Jolie sits down to talk about motherhood and her new starring role in "Maria" on "Good Morning America."

Eric Vetro tells PEOPLE about working with Jolie for around seven months in preparation for Pablo Larraín's new biopic about opera legend Maria Callas

Angelina Jolie glides through the final days of Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria." Currently playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix Dec. 11, “Maria," rated R, plays like an opera, grandly theatrical and evocative of a larger-than-life star.