Angelina Jolie Says Her "Light Was Dimmed" Amid Brad Pitt Divorce Settlement

Just days after Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt settled their divorce after almost a decade of legal proceedings, the Maria actress is again drawing parallels between her life and that of the iconic opera singer Maria Callas. The Girl, Interrupted actress, who took a step back from Hollywood in recent years, got vulnerable as she opened up about re-finding herself in her latest role, both professionally and personally after her “light was dimmed.”

In an interview with Times Radio released on Monday, January 6, Jolie got visibly emotional as she was asked whether playing the musical icon had hit close to home. The humanitarian, who’s previously said that she and Callas share a “certain loneliness" in common while promoting the biopic, revealed that she’d struggled with her creativity over the past few years.

“You’re an artist, and you go through different things in life,” she explained, adding, “And you wonder if certain parts of you have shut down, or who you are, what you have inside of you, and if your light’s dimmed, and if you have less to contribute, or if you don’t know yourself…”

Jolie said the challenge of playing Callas was something that she needed as she continued, “And what a gift as an artist, to be pushed again at this time in my life, to do something that terrified me and I wasn’t sure I could do is the greatest gift.”

The actress has previously opened up about how she “wasn’t [herself] for a while” and how this “very dark” time impacted her career in a December 19 interview with Vanity Fair. "I went very dark for reasons I’d rather not explain, but I didn't have a lot of light and life within me. Your light’s dim," Jolie–whose last role was in the 2021 Eternals–told the publication, adding that getting involved in the biopic Maria was the beginning of her "starting to come alive again."

The actress, who shares her six children—Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and 16-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne—with her ex-husband, continued, "I needed a lot of kind people around me to hold my hand. At the end of the day, we’re very fortunate to do what we do, and we are spending a lot of time with big, deep, emotional feelings. If you don’t do that with people who you're safe with, it can affect you in very bad ways."

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