‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’: Angelina Jolie Was Dissatisfied With the Movie Because Her Character Wasn’t ‘Sexy Enough’
Angelina Jolie might have been a bit disappointed with her first Tomb Raider film. Adapted from the video game of the same name, Raider tested if Jolie could lead her own action movie. Despite it being a somewhat financial success, Jolie felt there was more that could have been done with the film.
Angelina Jolie originally turned down ‘Tomb Raider’
Jolie wasn’t completely on board with the film when it was first presented to her. In an interview with Collider, the Marvel star opened up about her hesitation in accepting the role.
“I said, ‘I really didn’t feel like that character suited me.’ I actually didn’t at first want to do it; I said no,” Jolie recalled.
But she was eventually sold on the film for several reasons.
“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. And I would encourage anybody to do that,” she continued. “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 felt her character wasn’t ‘sexy enough’ in ‘Tomb Raider’
Angelina Jolie felt there were many reasons why the first Tomb Raider didn’t meet its full potential. In an interview with Black Film, the Girl, Interrupted actor opened up about what she felt the film missed the mark on.
“I wasn’t satisfied with it. Through the making of that film, we were all still trying [to] figure out how things worked, and we were trying to make the video game into a person, but still it was the video game and still she was a video vixen and she wasn’t quite a solid woman with emotions and feelings,” she said.
Jolie also factored in the character’s sexual appeal when discussing the film’s downfalls. While making the sequel, Jolie and the crew would try to correct the mistakes made in the first Tomb Raider.
“Even the way she looked wasn’t to me sexy and real enough. So there were a lot of things, and we couldn’t adjust to everything right. We thought a lot about how to make the second film right,” she continued.
Angelina Jolie thought ‘Tomb Raider’ was a good way of connecting with her father
Despite her disappointment in Tomb Raider, the film helped Jolie grow in several ways during filming. It alleviated concerns Jolie had about her own limitations and helped her discover what she was capable of as a performer.
“One night, I was sitting in my bathtub with all my bruises and cuts. I was crying and thinking, ‘What am I doing? I can’t pull this off, ” Jolie told Cinema. “But after a few months of pushing yourself, you’re suddenly swinging on a bunji rope and realizing, ‘Wow, I’m not hitting the wall.’”
At the same time, Jolie felt shooting Tomb Raider was a good opportunity to reconnect with family. She reached out to her father, actor Jon Voight, and asked him to be a part of the action flick.
“I called him and got Jon’s answering machine. I said, ‘It’s Angie and this is not a bad call. No more tattoos and I’m not pregnant. I just want you to be in a movie with me,’” she remembered.
For Jolie, Tomb Raider allowed for some father-daughter bonding between the two that she felt was necessary.
“My parents divorced when I was little and my Dad was never really absent in my life, but we didn’t spend all the time we could together. My Dad was very supportive, but there were still questions that I wanted to ask him. So this movie was great because it gave us quiet time to spend together,” Jolie added.
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