Angelina Jolie Once Shared ‘Tomb Raider’ Helped Treat Her Insomnia
Angelina Jolie had a starring role in the 2001 film adaptation of the video game Tomb Raider. But the role would end up having a profound and unexpected impact on Jolie’s life.
Angelina Jolie originally said no to ‘Tomb Raider’
Many remember Angelina Jolie as the action hero Lara Croft in 2001’s Tomb Raider. And although the film gave Jolie the opportunity to star in her own hit franchise, she was originally reluctant to do Tomb Raider.
“I said, ‘I really didn’t feel like the character suited me,'” Jolie said in an interview with Collider. “I actually didn’t at first want to do it; I said no.”
Jolie would later learn, however, she would be given a lot of time to prepare for Tomb Raider. Doing the movie also came with certain perks she was interested in experiencing.
“But they said you can travel the world and train with the British Military and so I had three months of seeing what I could do,” she said. “And I would encourage anybody to do that. Sign up for as much as you can, give yourself a few months, push yourself to the limit and see, ‘What can I do?’ And you find that there’s a lot you didn’t know and some crazy, weird things you can do or you’re capable of, so I love it.”
Angelina Jolie experienced insomnia and many other health problems before ‘Tomb Raider’
Tomb Raider proved to be important to Jolie in many unexpected ways. Since the film allowed her to travel the world, it exposed Jolie to certain circumstances that helped shape her worldview.
“A turning point in my life came when I made Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in England,” she once said according to Contact Music. “It also involved filming, partly, in Cambodia. I learned that the world is bigger than I thought it was and there were more important things than a film. I did not know much about Cambodia. I did not appreciate how beautiful it was and I had never met such open-hearted people.”
Jolie further credited the film for helping her live a healthier lifestyle by getting rid of certain habits.
“That film also helped me get in to shape. I smoked a lot, drank far too much, had way too much coffee and suffered from insomnia,” Jolie added. “The Fitness coaches on Lara Croft adjusted me. I had a certain amount of water, protein checks, vitamins, my cigarettes were taken away and I was not allowed to drink alcohol.”
However, despite her habits being taken away from her, Jolie had a lot of energy to spare playing Lara Croft.
“As for that role, I was loud and insane. I had too much fire for everyday life, so fitted into Lara Croft’s world perfectly,” she added.
Angelina Jolie once shared that conversations about gender in ‘Tomb Raider’ bothered her
Jolie came to enjoy many things about filming the video game adaptation, including the intense training regimen. Still, while doing the movie, the Oscar-winner did have a few discussions about Lara Croft that left a bad taste in her mouth.
“The only thing that bothered me upfront were the conversations about if a man could hit a woman in the big fights. I said, it’s two people fighting. Let’s not bring gender into it,” she once said in an interview with Cinema. “I loved that she’s very much a girl. She wasn’t trying to be a man. And she didn’t have a thing against me. She was even very flirty and very curvaceous as well as being a warrior deep down.”
