It undoubtedly helped that Jolie had won an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for her turn as Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted, and but when combined with her natural personality, West knew Jolie was up to the task and subsequently altered Lara Croft and the movie’s script to suit the actress’ strengths.
Some of the names thrown out by the studio included Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ashley Judd and Jennifer Lopez, but West only saw Jolie for the Lara Croft part.
While Angelina Jolie is still a household Hollywood name, like many other actors, there was a time when she wasn’t famous, so she faced an uphill battle scoring the Lara Croft role.
As Simon West explained to EW, at the time Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was casting, there hadn’t been an actress who’d carried her own action-adventure movie in a while, so Paramount Pictures was initially looking at more established performers.