“Lara Croft sleeps with knives, she can handle any weapon and doesn’t take shit from anybody. That’s Angelina.”

So says “Tomb Raider” director Simon West of his star, Hollywood beauty Angelina Jolie.
The opinionated and strong-willed actress, who last year won a supporting Oscar for her breakthrough performance as a mental patient in the drama “Girl Interrupted,” is now bringing the 1996 video game heroine to life in West’s $80 million film adaptation of the game.
“I was always told I was too dark and strange looking,” nods the juicy-lipped actress. “As Lara I could finally be more myself. And it was shocking that this was who I was. I was like, ‘My God – why does this feel so normal?’ ”
So, in describing Lara Croft - the aristocratic archaeologist with the eye-popping physique and an Indiana Jones- size taste for adventure - it’s not surprising that Angelina seems to be describing herself,
“She’s independent, full of fire and with a strong sense of fun and adventure, and she’s not afraid of anything.” Jolie also describes Croft as “sensitive, curvy and not trying to be a man. Lara’s all woman. She’s feminine rather than feminist; she’s not fighting the boys because they are boys, she’ll fight anybody.”
Simon West cast Angelina as Lara because he needed “this big, buxom, gorgeous, sexy woman who could act and bring a dark edge to the role.”

Jolie is, of course, noted for all the above both on and off the screen. Since playing a bisexual junkie in the 1998 TV movie “Gia,” she has created an edgy and headline-grabbing public image like no other star in Hollywood history. Audiences love her, and the press can’t get enough of her.Why? Here is evidence that talks for itself: The 25-year-old actress wed first husband, “Hackers” co-star Jonny Lee Miller, in a shirt inscribed with his name in blood (hers); she has talked openly about fancying women, of a love of S and M sex, of her passing penchant for self-mutilation, of a fondness of knives (she collects them) and of using them in sex play.
Then there are the eleven tattoos (“Tattoos are statements of who you are, a reminder of the things that matter to you”) and her passionately kissing her brother on the lips at last year’s Oscar awards and telling the world she was in love with him (the siblings even posed in lip lock for Elle magazine, inviting more tabloid frenzy and rumours of incest).
Shortly thereafter, Jolie rushed to the altar with “Pushing Tin” co-star Billy Bob Thornton, also an Oscar winner and twenty years her senior. The wedding surprised the world, including her family and Thornton’s live-in girlfriend, “Jurassic Park” star Laura Dern. Angelina and Billy Bob have been married in tabloid heaven ever since.

Professionally, the 5-feet-7 head-turner has played dangerously screwed-up beauties on television (“George Wallace,” “Gia”) and in films (“Playing by Heart,” “Pushing Tin,” “Girl Interrupted”) – and although “The Bone Collector,” opposite Denzel Washington, and “Gone in 60 Seconds,” with Nicolas Cage, were hits – it will be as action heroine Lara Croft that Jolie will become an international superstar.
“I took the role because I wanted to go on an adventure,” tells the actress, who until she was offered “Tomb Raider,” had never played the video game and only knew Lara Croft from watching her first husband play the game. Although Jolie admits that Croft is the role closest to herself, playing her was one of the hardest things she has ever done.
“It was such a challenge physically,” tells Angelina, who prepared for the role by following a training regime that included kickboxing, canoeing, street fighting and yoga. “A special diet also helped me shape my body. I ate steamed sea bass or steamed beef and vegetables, and I had no sugar and only drank soy milk.”
Angelina had lost weight from overwork and was glad the training and healthy diet helped her put back on a few pounds of curves.
“I’m all for curves on a woman, and feeling sexy,” she says, “and I never felt healthier or stronger than during the filming of this movie.” Jolie performed almost all of her own stunts in “Tomb Raider,” which include sword fighting, spear throwing, dog sledding and bungee jumping.
For the bungee-jumping sequence, she went through three months’ training. “The most difficult thing was learning how to do bungee ballet,” she recalls. “It took a while to learn how to work with the harness.”
Simon Crane, the stunt coordinator on the film, was very impressed with his star. “I would rate her very highly against all of the actors I have worked with (he worked on “Saving Private Ryan” and “Braveheart”). She did stunts you have never seen a woman do before.”
However, filming in Cambodia, Iceland and London took its toll. “I got used to getting injured,” recalls Angelina who injured her ankle, her knee, her foot, her shoulder, the side of her neck and her elbow during the shoot. “I got every different possible injury.” “But what I liked about playing Lara was the things I got to do. I got dirty, scratched and burnt – but those were great problems to have, because I felt like I was actually her in a certain way.”

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