In the film, Lara’s father, Lord Croft, is played by Jon Voight, Angelina’s real-life dad.
“The characters suit us,” she says of working with her father, who is best known for starring in classics like “Midnight Cowboy” and “Coming Home” (for which he won an Oscar).
“Lara follows in her father’s footsteps, as I have in my own life. And Lara wants to know that her father is proud of her, and he wants to know that she understands him. I think that’s what a lot of us have with our parents.”
“My father and I are a lot alike,” she continues. “We have had a stormy relationship because we’re so much alike (her parents divorce also affected her greatly). But things are better now. We talk regularly, yet we still push each other’s buttons.”
Jon Voight has claimed that his daughter was “never normal.” Born in 1975, in Los Angeles, Angelina’s first ambition was to be a funeral director.
“I didn’t like the way funerals were held,” she explains. “Some people in my life had passed on and I went to the funerals and was upset because they weren’t handled very well. They are very cold, and I thought they could be different.”
“There is beauty in death, and when you’re around people who are mourning, they’re, ironically, very connected to life. I thought it would have been a wonderful learning experience to deal with death in that way.”
At age seven, Joli got a chance to appear in her father’s film, “Lookin’ to Get Out.” She was immediately drawn to acting, she claims, because “there are so many different sides to my personality that I’d think I’d be lost without it.” A pause, then, “In fact, if I wasn’t an actor, there’s no way I wouldn’t have been in a mental institution.”
She attended the acclaimed Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute for drama at 11 and later worked as a model, before she appeared in videos for Rolling Stones and Lenny Kravitz. Her first starring roles were in 1993’s “Cyborg 2” (a straight-to-video thriller) and 1995’s “Hackers” (a B-horror flick).
Her two acclaimed TV films; “George Wallace” (’97) and “Gia” (’98) gained her Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe awards and a reputation as a talent to watch.
But her performance as the bisexual, drug-addicted, AIDS-ridden Gia became too much for the actress who quit acting and headed for New York to study film at NYU.
“I had just played a woman who didn’t find much meaning in life and I was beginning to feel that way too,” recalls Jolie, whose marriage to Jonny Lee Miller of “Trainspotting” fame crumbled at the time. “I felt worthless.”
“Playing By Heart,” co-starring Sean Connery, lured her back to the screen a year later. Although 1999’s “The Bone Collector” became her first hit film, Jolie’s breakthrough role was that of a sociopath in “Girl, Interrupted.”
For the performance, she won the 2000 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. This film also left deep psychological marks on her. She identified strongly with Lisa and said at the time, “I have a quote from Tennessee Williams tattooed on my upper arm. It says, “A Prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages.’ That’s Lisa. That’s me.”
“After “Girl, Interrupted,” I was really in a lot of pain,” she now admits. “I tried to hide from everybody and I was really just nervous and uncomfortable about life.”
Then, on the set of “Pushing Tin,” Angelina met husband-to-be Billy Bob Thornton. Her first thought meeting the writer-actor-director was, “Oh, God, that’s the kind of person I was hoping existed.”
“I was so happy to have met someone that makes sense to me. Until I met him, I had no idea how much you can love someone.”
Although the two spoke regularly on the phone, their relationship didn’t really begin until a year later; two months prior to them getting married on May 5th, 2000 in Las Vegas.
The wedding happened so fast that Laura Dern, who was on location at the time, claims to have gotten the news of her boyfriend’s marriage from reading the tabloids!
Of course, nobody predicted that the union would last more than six months. Grins a triumphant Angelina; “We’re two of the weirder people in this business, so you’d think people would say we’re perfect for each other.”
Indeed, Thornton’s image is just as twisted as Jolie’s. His fourth marriage ended amid charges of physical abuse and a restraining order. He has also been open about overcoming past alcohol abuse and eating disorders.
“We both have felt sad and alone a lot in our lives,” tells Angelina of her union with Billy Bob. “I thought I was always going to be alone, that my life would always be about my work. I was moving from place to place, never really having a self and never, ever really calming down or feeling satisfied.”
“Since meeting him, I’m more content, more alive, and my life has taken on meaning. I’m feeling centred, calm and safe.”
“I’m so proud of and so amazed by every day,” she continues of life with her husband, who is currently writing a film they can do together. “He’s just the most beautiful person I know. He’s my best friend, a great father (to three children from two of his previous marriages). I think we understand each other, and we accept each other completely as we are. I feel very, very lucky.”
The only recent tabloid stories surrounding the couple has been the effect the steamy scenes Angelina filmed with Antonio Banderas for the erotic drama “Original Sin” might have had on the marriage. Tabloids have speculated that the two stars were fooling around for real.
“God, that rumour was so predictable,” sighs the actress. “I knew that one was coming. I could have written that story myself.”

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