The diva in question is not Maria Callas, the famous and revered opera singer whose scandals were as dramatic as her performances. The diva I’m talking about is Angelina Jolie, who plays Callas under the direction of Pablo Larrain. Jolie’s performance is all over the place because the director and editor cut it that way.

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.

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

Angelina Jolie, star of the Oscar-bound Maria Callas biopic Maria, has mixed thoughts about biopics. "That gets the most insane question award," Jolie recently told The Times in response to a question about what a Pablo Larraín biopic of her own life would look like.

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