Angelina Jolie Agreed to Drug Testing for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, New Book Reveals

The actress was on the cusp of superstardom while filming the action hit

By Samantha Schnurr Mar 29, 2017 4:23 PMTags
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Angelina Jolie didn't become Lara Croft without overcoming a few behind-the-scenes hurdles. 

It's been 16 years since the Oscar winner fought her way onto the silver screen as the weapon-wielding action star, but according to a newly published excerpt in The Hollywood Reporter from an upcoming biography about film executive Sherry Lansing, there were a few hoops Jolie had to jump through personally to secure the iconic role. 

The most prominent of these hoops were drug tests administered to the actress in the process of filming Tomb Raider. As author Stephen Galloway wrote in Leading Lady, the film's director Simon West viewed the star's "baggage" at the time—rumors of drug use, a perceived strange relationship with her brother, her burgeoning relationship with Billy Bob Thornton—as "selling points."

"This troubled and dangerous aspect in her reputation actually helped the character," West said in the excerpt. 

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However, after "warnings" from Jolie's father Jon Voight and Jane Fonda to Paramount Pictures then-chairwoman Sherry Lansing, she sent the director to visit the actress on the set of Original Sin

"[Jolie] said: 'Look, I want to do it, but I know what my reputation is, and I'll do anything you want to prove that I'm worthy. I'll be reliable, and I'll turn up, and I'll work hard,'" West recalled, according to The Hollywood Reporter's excerpt. "She said, 'I don't care if the studio wants to drug test me every day.'"

As the biography described, she underwent urine and blood tests and passed, but the team was still concerned, so they hired professionals to look after her well-being—both physically and mentally. 

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That included hiring Bobby Klein—"somebody who had worked in that world of psychotherapy or drug management or whatever," West said. "He was brought in to supervise Angelina."

However, as the biography details, Klein became a strain on set and made suggestions like hiring a health expert who "wanted her to have milk baths and started talking about yoga and meditation and wanted to be the point person in charge of Angelina's training," producer Lloyd Levin said.

"It was just this bullshit. It seemed like spiritual hokum."

Following a series of issues—including allegedly sexually harassing the director's assistant—Klein was dismissed and the rest, as they say, is movie history. Jolie ultimately was a success. 

"In the dailies, she was riveting," Lansing said. "She took what might have been a cardboard character and added a layer of mystery and emotion and humanity."

Mystery, emotion, humanity and box office triumph. The movie earned $275 million worldwide in its opening with a $115 million budget and was slated for a sequel. As for the then-24-year-old, Jolie was well on her way to becoming one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood history. 

Leading Lady, published by Crown Archetype, which will be released April 25, is available for preorder now