Angelina Jolie Once Shared She Felt Free Doing ‘Tomb Raider’

Angelina Jolie once revealed the changes she experienced during and after she played Lara Croft in 'Tomb Raider'.

Angelina Jolie considered her action feature Tomb Raider a life-changing experience. The film helped show Jolie what she was physically and emotionally capable of, challenging her in a way she hadn’t been before.

Angelina Jolie pushed herself to the limit doing ‘Tomb Raider’

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was a huge film for Jolie at the time. It helped cement Jolie as an action star, one who could potentially lead her own action franchise. But surprisingly, Jolie initially turned down what would end up being one of her most iconic roles. Fortunately, it didn’t take much to convince the actor to change her mind.

“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 once told Collider. “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. 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.”

Tomb Raider turned out to be more than just another acting job for Jolie. The film helped introduce Jolie to a side of herself she grew very close with during the shoot, freeing her in a sense.

“This was a side of myself that I didn’t think was in me. But it wasn’t a surprise to people who know me,” Jolie once told Hollywood. “You spend so much time in your head as an actor, living in the dark, you forget to be free. And I’m the first person to be looking for what freedom means and to feel trapped and in a cage. It took me a while to realize that when I was standing at the edge of a waterfall in Cambodia, and I was so happy…God, I really learned what the world is about. Now it makes more sense to me, because if this is how I’ve needed to be my whole life and I didn’t have an outlet for it, it maybe explains why I’m a little crazy.”

Angelina Jolie felt Lara Croft didn’t have to compromise her sexuality to be tough

Jolie was used to playing tough characters before Tomb Raider came along. But she considered Lara Croft to be quite unique compared to the usual tough-girl roles she was offered. In the video games, Croft was known for wearing revealing but comfortable clothing that helped complement her figure. The films followed the character’s fashion sense, exploring Croft’s more sexual side. Which Jolie considered to be one of the film’s strengths.

“Almost every other suggestion for a movie I’ve done has been for a short, brown haircut and leather pants because THAT’S what a tough girl is,” Jolie once told Female. “A tough girl couldn’t possibly be a curvaceous woman who also is comfortable with her sexuality. And so many women are like, ‘Well, we don’t like the woman who’s comfortable with her body and flirtatious because that means she doesn’t like other women or that means she’s too flirty. We’re not comfortable with her.’ The reality is, nobody actually knows what sexual preference she has. That’s one reality. And the thing is, she’s just free.”

More importantly, Jolie felt the film’s character did right by the fans of the video game. And to the actor, pleasing the game’s loyal fanbase was a top priority for the adaptation.

“She has the things that make her Lara Croft,” Jolie continued. “We also knew there were lots of questions about what she was going to be wearing and whether she was going to have a shower scene. There are moments where, and it’s not an intentional [thing] where she’s being teasy or sexual. The entire movie was made for the people that like her. It’s one of those movies you do where, when there’s a moment where you finally accomplish something, you want them to be with you and rooting for you. That’s what it’s for. She’s become a real person. We were aware of all the things that people are looking for, like whether there was a shower scene, so we didn’t ignore that and put a bit of it in, but didn’t really show her body, didn’t really do anything overly sexual.”