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Angelina
Jolie
Tomb Raider 2
The Cradle Will Rock
The first Tomb Raider
film may have grossed around $300 million worldwide, making it the biggest
opening ever for a film with a female star, but Angelina Jolie admits
they had to get things right for instalment two, The Cradle of Life.
Through her permanent pout she states that the new film is “sharper
and darker and sexier” ...
Interview by Gareth
Gorman
Despite Tomb Raider shifting units, there was a general feeling that
the film sold itself on the back of the popular game franchise, and
(Jolie being every bit right for the role of Lara Croft) they had better
get it right next time. Tomb Raider was lacking in quips and one-liners,
had Lara stuck in her house for the first 45 minutes of the film, and
spent way too much time talking to her dead dad. It was a film desperately
vying for our attention, but couldn’t command it. Jolie and the
team realised this and promised Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Life will
indeed rock your world.
“Everyone liked the first film but didn’t love it. We changed
a lot of things - the action sequences, everything,” she says.
“There are lots of things going on above and below the water.”Yes,
water - which means it’s Lara Croft in a figure-hugging wetsuit,
boys. Grrrs and hubba-hubbas all around. And this is just the first
of many improvements since Lara last graced multiplexes everywhere.
One of the main improvements would
have to be the ditching of director Simon West for Jan de Bont of Speed
and Twister pedigree. You just know that a guy who can make a film about
a scary wind throwing cows around, and turn in an effort so exciting
it made stars of Keanu Reeves (pre-Matrix, folks) and Sandra Bullock
has to be better than West, a lunkhead director capable of turning in
Jerry Bruckheimer no-brainers such as Con Air, but that’s about
it.
The Cradle of Life finds our busty
archaeologist and explorer extraordinaire, Lara Croft, journeying to
a sunken temple (where else?) in search of lost treasures. During her
expedition, Croft happens upon a sphere that contains the mythical Pandora’s
Box, only to have it stolen from her by Chen Lo, the leader of a Chinese
crime syndicate. Chen Lo is in league with a bad guy named Reiss, who
wants to use the priceless Box as a doomsday weapon.The film also stars
Gerard Butler as Lara’s new love interest Terry Sheridan. Returning
are Noah Taylor and Chris Barrie as the boffin and butler respectively.
Fortunately their sequences are much better than the last outing. They
are joined by Gladiator actor Djimon Hounsou as a Masai warrior.Location
filming took place in Hong Kong and Kenya, but not China. Great Wall
Of China sequences were filmed in Wales. Angelina’s favourite,
though, was a Greek island. It seems the girl couldn’t get enough
of Santorini.“I loved it there. It’s really beautiful. Everyone
has been really warm.” Indeed the filming of The Cradle of Life
seemed to provide the perfect venue for Jolie to escape her well-known
private life woes. The living embodiment of Lara Croft manages to lose
herself in the character much like the spouses of Playstation widows
whittle away the hours in Lara’s various virtual worlds.
Such woes for Jolie include filing for divorce from her husband, actor
Billy Bob Thornton and being besieged by pleas from her estranged father,
Jon Voight, to reconcile and receive treatment for alleged emotional
and psychological problems – thanks, Dad. On a brighter note,
Jolie adopted a child, a Cambodian infant she named Maddox, and it seems
he’s provided the happiness nothing else has even come close to.
“There’s nothing else that’s more important. I’m
very, very fortunate. It’s wonderful. It’s just the most
amazing thing in the world,” she says. “He’s changed
my life. He’s really centred me. Anytime I think anything else
is important, I just see his smile. He’s made me be the best person
I could possibly be. Mind you, he kept peeing on my wardrobe, so I had
to get an apron to wear. He’s just a boy, so in between diapers
he’d get me.”Angelina is now a bit more careful with her
stunts and derring-do. “I check safety things a little bit more
than I used to now that Maddox is here.” But she is still doing
many of her own stunts, including riding a horse side-saddle, rapelling
face-forward down a cliff wall, riding motorcycles and jet-skiing.
“I’d never ridden a jet-ski, and I had a lot of practice,
[but the producers] always make it more complicated. So it was stand-up
jet-skis, which took me a few days of constantly falling and getting
frustrated,” she says. “We started [shooting] in Greece,
which was great. Mind you, I hate water and I hate bikinis. So what
do we start with, but my worst possible day as an actress. Yup, me jet-skiing
in a bikini in the water in Greece.
“On the whole it’s a lot of fun. I’m one of those
people who just really wants to do it. What do you say? Mad for it?
Yeah, I’m mad for it. There were times where I’d swing like
a pendulum and almost hit the wall, and I couldn’t go up and down,
I kept swinging and flying like Superman and laughing. And as for being
fearless, I think I’m either fearless or crazy, but either way,
I’ve found a home for it.”
Indeed she has, and you can bank on the fact that Ms Jolie is more than
happy to be returning to play an icon. It seems she just wants to be
adored, as well as do her bit for girl power. “Playing Lara, well
it just feels so great to hold my head up as a woman. It’s not
really like me to be quite like that. I know all the things about me
that are crazy, strange, or dark. And she’s also almost got this
swagger. It’s like being on stage and she’s like Elvis.
So, you have to jump right in, and that was the hardest thing to me,
to be kind of proud, and with that confidence that I don’t have
in my life as a woman.”
In Lara, does she believe she’s found something of herself?
“This was a side that I didn’t think was in me. But it wasn’t
a surprise to people who know me. 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 realise 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 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.“When I was younger, I was a bit of a loner and
just didn’t feel like doing normal things. I can’t remember
when I didn’t think that. I figured everybody else felt the same
isolation. I did notice early on that I didn’t seem content when
a lot of other people did. But I really just hated hanging out. Just
doing regular things never felt like enough.”
Speaking of craziness: while Lara Croft finds happiness is a warm gun,
a pistol in each hand, Ms Jolie prefers the feel of cold hard steely
knives.“Well, I don’t think that’s that crazy. I lived
in New York by myself for three years. I had a knife under the mattress,
you know? But I have a case that I lock all my knives in.”Doing
Lara Croft’s stunts is one thing, but how does Jolie , ahem, measure
up to Lara Croft in reality? Previous incarnations of Lara have included
Nell McAndrew, Lara Weller, Lucy Clarkson and Jill De Jong, all employed
by the game manufacturer Eidos, and all of whom have gone to considerable
trouble to reach Lara’s vital statistics, with Rhona Mitra notably
boosting herself up for the modelling role.
“Right. This has been the big question. I’m a 36C. In the
film, I’m a 36D. In the game, she’s a double-D 40 with a
20-inch waist and 35-inch hips or something. I have a regular waist,
regular hips, kind of like a boy. So we basically gave her a proper
padded bra. But it wasn’t so far off, since I had to do the physical
things. I’m fine with my breasts and I don’t think its something
little girls look at and think, ‘I should be like that and get
a breast implant’. It’s part of her character, so you do
it. But I want every young girl to know that is not completely me.”
In a strange but true twist, it seems that the living embodiment of
the world’s most famous computer game character is a complete
and utter technophobe, especially when it comes to mainframes, modems,
gigabytes or even just a plain old game of pong. As for dealing with
The Perils of Lara on PS2, PC or Xbox - forget it.
“Oh, I just get frustrated with the game all the time. I can’t
work a computer, it’s so frustrating.”
Even Angelina Jolie feels frustration from time to time.
The Cradle of Life opened in September 2003.
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