Why Angelina Jolie completely disowned her first movie: “That’s how she describes it”
When starting out in the creative industry, you are often forced to accept jobs that you don’t really want to do, with young actors who star in projects that don’t reflect their true talents and later feel embarrassed about ever having to do it.
It could be Jacob Elordi and his breakout role in The Kissing Booth, or Zendaya and her first dramatic performance in Euphoria, that later clashed with the higher calibre of projects she was selecting, but there are many creatives who would take any job if it could help them get ahead. While some of us might look back on these jobs with fondness, others look back on them with embarrassment and even try to cover them up, with Angelina Jolie displaying a less-than-positive reaction towards one of her earliest films.
Some might first remember Jolie for her role in Hackers, a punky cyber-drama directed by Iain Softley that follows a group of teenagers who try to stop an evil virus from spreading by using their computer hacking skills. With a killer soundtrack and campy atmosphere, it’s one of those 1990s classics that never fails to entertain.
It was seemingly a breakout role for Jolie, or so she wanted people to think, with the actor previously starring in a very similar movie that she seemingly tried to cut herself away from. When discussing his work with Jolie and how it was regarded as her breakout role, the director of Hackers said, “It was. Well, she calls it her first role. That’s how she describes it. Certainly her first lead role. I met her at the Berlin Film Festival a few years ago, when she was premiering one of her films, and she introduced me to the cast who were there as the [people] who gave her her first film and her first husband”.
However, it is interesting that she described Hackers as her first movie role, perhaps intentionally trying to glaze over her work in the disastrous 1993 project Cyborg 2, directed by Michael Schroeder. It was met with considerably less warmth, and Jolie was even reported to have thrown up after first watching the film. Starring alongside Elias Koteas, the movie is set in 2074 and follows the rift in the cybernetics market between two huge companies, both selling cyborgs that have a myriad of different uses.
From her description of Hackers as being her first role, perhaps she was trying to move past this creative venture and eliminate it from her filmography, something that many actors do when discussing projects from their past that they regret. It is understandable if it is genuinely awful, but perhaps it is now more normalised to own your mistakes and regrets, with the likes of Kristen Stewart and Michael Caine being bluntly honest about the films they hated making and didn’t enjoy watching.
While it is embarrassing to have your name plastered all over something you don’t feel proud of, perhaps we’re now in a place where we can discuss our regrets instead of glossing over them, adding a more realistic edge to such a polished business.
