“That wasn’t what I was out to do”: the Razzie-nominated role that insulted and angered Angelina Jolie
It’s one of the most unwanted and unfortunate byproducts of fame and fortune that’s become an unavoidable evil, but few stars of the modern era have dealt with as much tabloid obsession and press intrusion as Angelina Jolie.
Ever since she first broke out as an A-lister in the late 1990s when George Wallace, Gia, and Girl, Interrupted won her three consecutive Golden Globes and the latter also earned her an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actress’, Jolie has been forced to live her life under the harsh glare of the celebrity spotlight.
Whether it was her marriages to Billy Bob Thornton and Brad Pitt, the difficult relationship with her father, Jon Voight, or her work as a humanitarian and activist, Jolie has spent the better part of the last quarter of a century being followed everywhere she goes and having cameras thrust into her face.
As mentioned, it’s not a life anybody would choose for themselves, but one particular film forced the actor to speak out after the rumour mill spiralled out of control. It wasn’t even for a good movie, either, but the worst-reviewed entry in her entire filmography that saw Jolie make the Golden Raspberry Awards shortlist for the first time when the combination of Original Sin and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider saw her shortlisted for ‘Worst Actress’.
Antonio Banderas plays Luis Antonio Vargas, who selects Jolie’s Julia Russell as his mail-order bride. However, she’s a con artist who used false photos to lure Vargas into choosing her and who plans to dupe her new husband out of his money as part of an elaborate manipulation scheme. Naturally, things go awry when the two fall in love with each other, but it wasn’t the narrative that angered the star.
During production of Original Sin, unsubstantiated reports began to emerge claiming that Jolie and Banderas had embarked on a real-life affair, which was hardly speculation either of them welcomed when they were married to Thornton and Melanie Griffith, respectively. It became the biggest talking point surrounding the movie, which left Jolie with no other choice but to speak out.
“You’re talking about a man who is deeply in love with his wife and married; he has beautiful children with her, and they’re such a great family,” she told ABC News. “And I’m madly in love my husband, we have such a great relationship, and the idea that either one of us would, would want anything more than our marriages is really insulting and angering.”
It didn’t help matters that Original Sin was awful, which left the fabricated affair as the only aspect of the movie anybody wanted to talk about, especially when there were several steamy scenes between the two. Jolie admitted that she knew “they’d pick up on that” and not that she needed to explain herself, the actor declared, “That wasn’t what I was out to do.”
Bad movies tend to be forgotten fairly quickly, but in the case of Original Sin, Jolie was placed in a situation where she had to promote a unanimously panned flop while repeatedly defending herself and her co-star against rumours of infidelity.
