Angelina Jolie steps into the shoes of opera legend Maria Callas in the new biopic Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín. The first trailer reveals Jolie’s emotional portrayal, showcasing her transformation into the famous soprano.

Reality is of little consequence on the stage and in “Maria.” It’s all about the raw feeling, which serves the movie well, more dream than history lesson about La Callas. Early on, she pops some Mandrax and tells her devoted butler Ferruccio (a simply wonderful Pierfrancesco Favino) that a television crew is on the way.

The important thing to know going into “Maria” is that it’s the third in a trilogy of films directed by the Chilean whirlwind Pablo Larraín that seek to recover the women behind the plaster saints of 20th-century iconography.

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts behind the year’s buzziest awards-season films continues with Maria, the Maria Callas snapshot-biopic starring Angelina Jolie. Pablo Larraín directed the screenplay penned by Steven Knight.

It’s a telling moment in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” when opera legend Maria Callas, played with forceful elegance by Angelina Jolie, rails about how much less she earns as a singer than Frank Sinatra. It’s not jealousy;