SimplyAbuDhabi XLVII

Pablo Larraín said about you, ‘There’s was no struggle for Angie to beMaria Callas and carry that weight – she already has it’. What did you make of that? AJ : Well, a lot of thoughts come to mind because you have things that give you that weight in life. And I feel very fortunate as an artist that I have a place to put some of that weight. I don’t know how I feel about that weight or that I carry that. I hope I don’t appear as somebody with that weight or that darkness or that heaviness, but I do feel sometimes that I have it. You know, things happen, and we all just carry things over a lifetime. And sometimes we wear them lightly, and sometimes we’re not very good at hiding that. I’m lucky enough to work in a medium where I can explore and work through some of that. The film finds her living a very solitary existence. As someone who is surrounded by family and friends, how did you relate to that? AJ : I don’t have a big family. I lost my mom when I was young, so I don’t have, like, a big extended circle. But I do have my children. And I thought of that often. I thought of how different she might have been if she was able to have that kind of love where you live for someone else and you feel the joy of that kind of warm love, which she didn’t get from her mother and she didn’t get from partners. So I don’t think she ever had that. But I do think the two people in her life that were close to her were truly close to her and cared about her, and I’m so happy she had them. Finally, how did the role change you personally and professionally? AJ : I think it reminded me, because I’d never played an artist, that there’s a lot in our business that becomes about the business. And we sometimes forget what it is to really live a life as an artist and the gift that that is and the challenges it brings, but also - what that really, really is. And so I think because of that other side of this business, that other side of Hollywood, I’d almost not been proud to say, ‘I’m an actor. I’m an artist’. I think there was a part of me that was, because of the celebrity aspect of that life, I stayed away from it for a very long time. And this film helped me to kind of reconnect to that - what it is to study and feel and think and push ourselves and try for something that scares us, and do something that maybe people will like or don’t like. It made me kind of want to rejoin the community in a different way and be a part of whatever it is that gets us all past that stuff. And just get messy together in that roomwhere we get to just be really human and do all that we’re supposed to do as messy, open, emotional artists. Angelina, thank you so much for your time and insights. AJ : It’s been a pleasure! 66 | Simply Abu Dhabi