Angelina Jolie suggests that her new film Maria has offered her a way out of the darkness and back into movies.

We are seeing quite a few female comebacks as of late, with the likes of Pamela Anderson and Cameron Diaz marking shifts in public perception and career moves. One that definitely deserves to be on this list is Angelina Jolie, who, despite popping into the MCU with Marvels a few years ago, has largely been absent from the screen. But with Maria – in which she plays singer Maria Callas – Angelina Jolie is poised for that comeback.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, Anjelia Jolie credited Maria with reinvigorating her love for the screen, especially after years of tabloid attention over her personal business. “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. I also just needed to be home more, so I couldn’t commit large periods of time to pieces. The choice of what to work on and when was not a creative choice, often, the last few years, but sometimes the practical choice. Really, I think Maria was the beginning of starting to come alive again. I needed a lot of kind people around me to hold my hand.”

For her turn, Angelina Jolie earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Drama, marking her first Globe nod for acting since 2010’s The Tourist. (She would, however, earn Best Foreign Film nominations for her heavier directorial fare, In the Land of Blood and Honey and First They Killed My Father, showing where her attention rested.) On the praise for the film after a noticeable absence, she said, “If no one receives your piece, or if you don’t connect, then it’s like shouting in the dark. It means a lot that people have responded to Maria. I’ve always felt, ever since I was very young, that film has been a way to communicate with the world and not feel as alone…We’re all going through this human condition and this life. So it’s very, very healing to be able to be a part of these films and to talk to you about this and to live that way. And I missed it. I realized I did really miss it. I missed being an artist.”

Angelina Jolie is highly likely to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actress when they are announced on January 17th. It would be her first since 2009’s Changeling, although her humanitarian efforts were recognized by AMPAS a few years later.

What is your favorite Angelina Jolie performance? What do you hope to see from her in the coming years?