25 years ago today, Angelina Jolie brought video game relic hunter Lara Croft to life in the 2001 movie, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
The titular adventurer was already a household name by the time the first film was released, having headlined four games from 1996-1999. The pixelated heroine was so popular, she even landed her own magazine cover in 1997, appearing on the front of British magazine The Face in 1997.
While future Nip/Tuck actress Rhona Mitra was selected by video game publisher Eidos Interactive to dress as the character at promotional events from 1997-1998, making her one of the first women to portray Croft, Jolie’s version has since become the most memorable portrayal of Lara yet.
An interview from earlier this year, however, suggests that Jolie almost didn’t land the part.
Who Turned Down ‘Tomb Raider’?
In February 2026, actress Neve Campbell was asked by Buzzfeed UK whether there were any roles she turned down or didn’t get that would have changed her life had she played them.
“I think I turned down Lara Croft,” she replied.
She then mentioned she was offered a role in Michael Bay’s 2001 film Pearl Harbor, adding, “You make the choices you make at the time but certain ones I wasn’t available for as well, because I was so busy during Party of Five. That took up 10 months of my year for six years.”
While Campbell didn’t specifically say it was the 2001 Tomb Raider movie she turned down, the timing lines up. When filming began in 2000, Campbell had just wrapped her six season run as Julia Salinger on Fox’s Party of Five. She was also pretty in-demand, having launched the Scream franchise in 1996, while also starring in popular movies including The Craft and Wild Things.
“Listen, I’m grateful for everything that I’ve had,” added Campbell, who would have been in her late 20s at the time. As she mentioned, she was also allegedly up for a role in Bay’s blockbuster that same year.
“I went in, I kicked ass on that audition. I learned Japanese,” she said of Pearl Harbor. “I had my lines translated and went in and spoke Japanese in the audition, and I got it, but I couldn’t do it. I was like, I worked really hard!”
Angelina Jolie Lands the Role
A number of big names were reportedly considered for the role of Lara, before it went to Jolie.
Director Simon West confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that the studio suggested a number of stars—including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Lopez, and Ashley Judd—to play Croft at the time. There were also rumors that Denise Richards was in the running.
“The casting process is so overblown,” said producer Larry Gordon in 2001. “There were a lot of people interested, according to their agents, but there was no question once we saw Angelina’s name on the list that she was the perfect person.”
“There hadn’t been a female lead of an action-adventure film that had carried a film [by herself recently], and Angelina wasn’t as big as some of the other actresses that were up for the part, who’d done bigger films and had a longer track record and bigger box-office grosses,” West shared in 2018.
While West said he couldn’t see anyone else in the role but Jolie, the actress had a reputation that wasn’t as “safe” as others in Hollywood.
“She lived quite an alternative lifestyle and didn’t hold back her words. She spoke her mind, and she had a notorious reputation,” he said, claiming he had to argue for Jolie’s casting. “It was quite hard for me to get her through the approval process at the studio, because I wanted an actress who was going to bring something to the part, and she brought this great Angelina Jolie mythology with her as this dark, crazy, wicked woman with a very particular and interesting personality. I wanted that mythology of Angelina Jolie to fuse with Lara Croft.”
Gordon, of course, won out and the move paid off.
Made on a budget of $115 million, the first film raked in $274.7 million at the box office in 2001. While it wasn’t necessarily beloved by critics, it was more than successful enough financially to warrant a sequel.
In 2003, Paramount released Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life, also starring Jolie. That movie was made on a tighter $95 million budget and grossed $160.1 million, a figure far less than the previous installment. In the U.S., it didn’t even debut at #1 at the box office on opening weekend, placing fourth behind Bad Boys II, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.
As new video games kept coming, the franchise wouldn’t get another film until 2018’s Tomb Raider starring Alicia Vikander as Croft. A sequel to her film, however, never materialized; Amazon Studios later secured the rights to the franchise, with a live-action series starring Sophie Turner now in production.
This story was originally published by Men’s Journal on Jun 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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