The reason Angelina Jolie hated Lara Croft to begin with: “I kill her constantly”
By the time the 20th century drew to a close, Angelina Jolie had already established herself as a promising actor, winning the ‘Best Supporting Actress’ Academy Award for her effort in Girl, Interrupted and also giving a handful of other acclaimed turns. However, it was her performance in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider that cemented the daughter of actor Jon Voight as a household name.
Directed by Simon West, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was based on the Tomb Raider video game series, which focuses on a fictional British archaeologist by the name of Lara Croft, who sets off on adventures around the world to search for lost artefacts, while heading deep into dangerous tombs, crypts and ruins.
The video game series was an iconic piece of the medium at the turn of the millennium, and West’s film attempted to bring its brilliance to the big screen. Narratively, the film tells of Lara’s mission to obtain a number of ancient artefacts from around the world while competing with a number of figures from the Illuminati.
Jolie’s performance was relatively well-received and a big box office taking was earned, although the film in general was widely critically lambasted. In fact, Jolie had originally “hated” her character before she had even set foot on the set of the movie, owing to her early experience with the video game.
Speaking with the BBC, Jolie explained how her first husband, Jonny Lee Miller, had introduced her to the games and how she initially found them annoying. “Maybe there was something to Jonny playing it years ago and me just hating this woman, because she kept my husband up all night at the time,” she said.
Jolie added, “I’m actually terrible at the game; I kill her constantly, which I love to do because she makes these little sounds that I’m very fond of.” However, there was more to Lara Croft than just the video game version, and Jolie was set about bringing the character to life on the big screen.
Daniel Craig also starred in the first Tomb Raider movie, although he said that it was the “worst mistake” of his career, noting, “The script on that was all over the fucking place, and I could just never get my head around what was supposed to be going on. I should never have said yes.”
Even though Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was indeed critically panned, a sequel movie was greenlit and was released in 2003. Directed by Jan de Bont, The Cradle of Life was considered to be better than the original movie, although it was not as successful from a commercial perspective.
Despite initially hating the character of Croft, Jolie seemed to come around to the idea of playing her on a number of occasions. By the time the second film came around, the actor felt that she had transformed her from a two-dimensional flat character into someone with actual emotions.
“There’s a videogame character that a lot of people like, and you want to start transferring her to life without ruining what they like about her. But we didn’t know what she fears, what she loves and what makes her laugh,” Jolie explained in another interview with the BBC. So, thankfully, what had once been a hatred for Jolie ended up being one of the most important roles of her career.
