ANGIE

It was 2000 when 25-year-old Angelina (now 42) first laced up her boots and strapped on her gun holster to film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The flick made her an international household name – and a global sex symbol. Still, the film was largely considered a good romp and not much else. “All lips and legs, Angelina Jolie struts through Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. . . as if nothing in the movie mattered but her own sex appeal,” reviewer John Anderson wrote in News Day.

PLOT OF THE ORIGINAL In Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, we meet Lara Croft, an orphaned heiress and adventuring archaeologist.

Brave, busty, beautiful Lara embarks on a perilous quest to destroy two halves of an ancient artefact that can control time.

The original film and the 2003 sequel got dismal reviews, with the Hollywood Reporter saying “there’s more tension in Jolie’s T-shirts than in the dramatic action”. But fans didn’t care. Tomb Raider was a box-office hit, raking in a cool $274,7 million (then R1,78 billion).

BECOMING LARA It wasn’t Angie’s acting chops alone that won her the role. Back then she was famous for wearing a vial of then-husband Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck and revelling in her wild-child reputation. “This troubled and dangerous aspect helped the character,” director Simon West says.

Angie needed two-and-a-half months of intense training to get in shape, as she had to do plenty of Lara’s death-defying stunts herself.

“Angelina was doing triple backflips on the set,” Simon said. For one scene her stunt double refused to do the stunt. “Angie said, ‘No problem.’ Within a week, she was going, ‘I love it! Let’s go again!’ ”