Phillip Noyce: The director who spent his own money to hire Angelina Jolie
From an early age, it seemed as though Angelina Jolie was destined for success. After appearing alongside her father, Jon Voight, in Lookin’ To Get Out as a child, it would be another decade until she actually started her career. However, when she did, she quickly began to attract significant acclaim.
Despite being often the centre of media coverage due to her unusual public image—which deemed her intense, obsessed with blood, and a keen drug user—Jolie still amassed recognition for her performances. She starred in Hackers in 1995, now a cult classic, alongside a string of moderately successful comedies and dramas.
By the late 1990s, however, she was steadfastly rising to stardom, which was aided by multiple prominent accolades. She won two consecutive Golden Globes for the television films George Wallace and Gia, putting her on the map as a successful up-and-coming star. She truly broke through in 1999, though, when she appeared in Girl, Interrupted as the sociopathic Lisa Rowe, which earned her a ‘Best Supporting Actress’ award at the Oscars.
This led her to many more big-budget movie roles, such as the role of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. From Shark Tale to Mr and Mrs Smith, Changeling, the Kung Fu Panda series, and Maleficent, Jolie has appeared in a wide range of movies over the past years.
Yet, there was one director who recognised Jolie’s sheer talent before she even won her Academy Award. Phillip Noyce, who has directed movies such as The Quiet American, Patriot Games, and Blind Fury, was deeply impressed when he saw Jolie in Gia. Thus, when it came to picking out a lead actor for his film The Bone Collector, he was interested in having Jolie play the part.
Based on the book of the same name by Jeffery Deaver, The Bone Collector ended up starring Denzel Washington as a quadriplegic detective and Jolie as a police officer new to the job. Noyce was “looking for a very specific actress for The Bone Collector,” he explained to Rolling Stone.
“She had to be young, in her mid-twenties, with the strength to play a New York cop, as well as a very special vulnerability. The character is really the heart of the story; she comes into the life of the character played by Denzel Washington and reignites his will to live,” he added.
Due to seeing Jolie in Gia, Noyce admitted that he admired “the strength and the vulnerability, and also a fearlessness, both in the character she portrayed and — I realised when I met her — as an artist.”
He continued, “Funnily enough, the studio didn’t want her — they said, ‘Angelina who?’ Because as soon as the script came out, a lot of female actors came forward, including some very big names, who were willing to cut their fees to do the film.”
Despite actors such as Nicole Kidman being considered for the part, Noyce put up a fight for Jolie, even if it meant going to extreme measures. “What finally happened was, in order to secure Angelina and Denzel, the studio put a cap on the budget and said the director and producer will pay the overages, to which we agreed. I put up a million dollars.”
