Angelina Jolie learned a lot from playing singer Maria Callas
including lessons from the late opera legend that took her by surprise.
Ahead of the premiere of her movie Maria at the 81st Venice Film Festival
the Oscar winner was asked during a panel about what the word "diva"
means to her in the context of her own life, considering Callas was known by many as "a great diva."
I think it's often come with a lot of negative connotations," said Jolie, 49, at the panel on Thursday, Aug. 29.
"I think I've re-learned that word through Maria ... and I have a new relationship to it."
"I think it is often other people's perception of a woman that defines, sometimes too much,
who she is and who she was, or what she intended," she added.
And I actually think [Maria] was one of the hardest-working people, who didn't hurt anybody."
"So I suppose it's everybody in this room that makes that definition sometimes, but the true definition may be [that] the great composers define it differently," Jolie said.