AN INTERVIEW WITH ANGELINA JOLIE
Copyright 2000 Mother Ship

[ July 24th 2000 ]

"The kids should really like that one!" Jolie says, noting that her new hubby, Billy Bob Thornton, will be making an appearance in the film as well. "Billy's playing a barber. He's cutting hair and I'm shooting guns! Yeah, I've been in England for three weeks and we will be there for over a month more just doing training. I'm training throughout the film, but it's been great for me. I get up and do yoga at 7 in the morning, which is insane! I'm on protein shakes, and they've taken my cigarettes and alcohol and sugar away from me -- and Billy -- because I'm far away."

Jolie's Lara Croft training involves a lot more than Yoga the actress reveals. "I'm doing bungee ballet and I'm doing diving, weapons training with the Special Forces," the actress says. "I'm doing kickboxing -- everything from soccer to rowing. One British thing is to learn manners -- they're sending me to manners school!" Lest anyone doubt, Jolie will be playing Croft as an Englishwoman. "Being in England, I now know she's very British," Jolie says. "She was raised a certain way, so she has a very proper voice, but it's been broken down, and she has very proper manners, but they've been broken down and all that stuff. I've been working on the accent."

Everyone knows Lara Croft is an arms specialist too, so for Tomb Raider Jolie is learning all about firearms of every description. "It's fun to learn about 'em, to be trained to take 'em apart and put them back together and also to understand it," she says. "It is like driving -- it's the same thing. Yeah, you learn how to do it really fast. You learn how to shoot really well, but you also learn how to use the equipment properly. We shot a blank into Styrofoam and this is what actors use -- and I've seen actors put them, like, this close to another actor's head. "They had me shoot a blank into Styrofoam. I had like two guns. It blew a hole this big, and the second gun set it on fire. And that's what we all have, right at each other's heads. I'm learning a lot of things. I was like, 'Whoa!'"

With shooting in Cambodia, Iceland and England, Jolie will be doing almost as much globetrotting as Croft herself, with shooting starting at the end of July. And don't kid yourself -- Jolie is looking forward to it. "There's sky diving and there's motorcycle riding," she says. "It's all going to be good. There's some kind of swimming with a hundred eels that I'm really looking forward to, for some weird reason."