The wicked witch who has haunted generations of children in Sleeping Beauty has been brought grippingly to life by Angelina Jolie, in a modern retelling seeking to humanize the fairytale she-devil.
“Maleficent”, released on Friday in the United States, has been produced by “luscious lips” Jolie, who also stars in the film about the Disney witch with unlimited powers.
“It was both a great pleasure and an extreme challenge to have such an extraordinary original. And we wanted to make sure we did justice to it,” Jolie told a recent press conference in Paris.
“I was scared of her, but I loved her. I was fascinated by her when I was a child, so I didn’t want to do anything that would not be good enough for all the people that had responded to her over the years,” she added.
“Maleficent” aims to be both a retelling of the fairytale and an exploration of her past, to show what made her so cruel.
“I think it’s nice to use these stories that we are familiar with to try to touch on deeper and bigger themes,” said Jolie.
