TOMB RAIDER STUDIO SECRETS
Copyright 2001 www.tombraiderchronicles.com ET Online

[ June 14th 2001 ]

ET Online scores this report on the hurdles and secrets buried deep within the studios of Paramount Pictures upcoming Tomb Raider motion picture:

From real-life temples to cavernous, mind-boggling sets, the production crew of 'Raider' had to invent worlds that no one had seen before. Writer-director SIMON WEST faced many hurdles to create Lara's world, but perhaps the most difficult was building a set on Europe's largest soundstage for the film's climatic scene: a complicated system of planets in alignment that rotate into an ancient super-sized mechanical key to a puzzle.

Explains 'Tomb''s production designer, "The technical side is quite difficult: nine planets and sun. How do we make nine planets miss each other? When we finally destroy it, crank it up, give it as much as we can, start blowing arms off -- anything can happen." Twenty-five-year-old Jolie's production odyssey took her across the globe to such exotic locations as London, Iceland and Angkor, Cambodia. The actress also had to endure rigorous training for the physical feats required of her animated alter-ego, resulting in more than a few cuts and scrapes on the set.

In a Movieline interview, Jolie points out, "I got every different possible injury. I pulled ligaments, burned myself on a chandelier.... But the most difficult thing was learning how to do bungee ballet. It took me a while to work with the harnesses."