Angelina Jolie: Back in fighting form

One of the most glamorous and most beautiful women in Hollywood is also one of the most fearless in doing action flicks.  Maybe it’s the mystery and the unpredictability that make Angelina Jolie a blockbuster actress.  At home with roles made for men, she joked about playing James Bond when the co-chair of Sony Pictures spoke to her about Casino Royale.  That joke was taken seriously, hence this latest Jolie flick, Salt.

“I was meeting with Amy Pascal a few years ago when it came up in conversation that she was getting ready to make one of the new James Bond films,” Jolie remembers.  “I playfully said, ‘I want to be Bond!’  That was our little joke, and then she found this project.”

As a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt (Jolie) swore an oath to duty, honor, and country. Her loyalty will be tested when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture. Salt’s efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubts on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: “Who is Salt?”

Being A Sleeper Mole Is No Yawner

In casting Jolie, the filmmakers felt they could push the throttle on the action quotient.  “Salt fights aggressively, in face-to-face combat,” she notes.  “In some movies I’ve done, there’s been a temptation — because I’m female — to make the action nice.” And nice, she says, is not how a trained operative accused of being a sleeper mole for the enemy would fight.

“I think when people write things intentionally, originally for women — at least with the films I’ve done in the past, either fantasy or comic book — they are not traditionally the more serious side of the action thriller genre. There is something cool and hip and fun about them, but they don’t stay grounded in something a little raw and a little harder. With Salt, the writers didn’t necessarily sit down and think, ‘What would a woman do in this situation?’ They just thought, ‘What would a CIA agent do?’ And I think that immediately made it one of the better roles I’ve read and something that was much more challenging to do,” she explains.

“Angelina’s the consummate pro,” notes producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura.  “Whether it’s a dramatic scene, whether it’s a funny scene, whether it’s an action scene, she’s going for it.  It’s great to work with somebody who really wants to push the boundaries.”

Lights, Camera, Action!

With Jolie in the lead role, the filmmakers were limited only by their imaginations when it came to the action and stunt sequences in the film.  “Angelina is very much into doing all the action herself,” says Simon Crane, who directed the second unit and coordinated the stunts.  Crane had collaborated with Jolie on many films prior to Salt, including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Mr.& Mrs. Smith. “She’s really game for anything.”

“I think it’s great when a movie star is willing to put herself out there because it makes you stay in the moment even more as an audience member,” says di Bonaventura.  “She’s pretty fearless.”

In one major action sequence, Salt, cornered by her pursuers, makes a bold leap off a freeway overpass and lands on top of a moving truck on the highway below.  Salt’s pursuers follow her in an SUV, and arrange a roadblock, forcing Salt to take some dramatic evasive actions in the middle of a six-lane thoroughfare.   

Working from an animatronic storyboard designed over the previous months, Crane and his team spent several weeks on the highways of Albany, New York, planning, rehearsing, and shooting this complex sequence.  The Route 787 and Route 20 interchange next to downtown Albany matched DC’s highways, and caused little traffic disruption when exit and entrance ramps had to be closed for filming.   

Crane, working closely with stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood and Jolie’s stunt double Eunice Huthart, planned the shot.  “That’s really Angelina on top of the vehicles,” says Crane.   

Learning Muay Thai And Krav Maga

Jolie also worked with Crane and his team to develop the fight style that her character would employ.  “Because I’m a girl and I’m light on my feet, we naturally went to styles like Muay Thai, which is very long and beautiful,” Jolie says.  Muay Thai employs the “Art of Eight Limbs,” in which not only fists are used to make strikes, but also elbows, shins, and knees. “But then we realized it wasn’t as practical a fight if you have face-to-face combat, and it didn’t look as aggressive,” says the actress. 

So Jolie and Crane and his team added Krav Maga, a more brutal form of fighting developed in Israel and used by the FBI and American special operations forces, to Salt’s fighting technique.  “She fights secret service guards in the film,” notes Crane.  “You can’t have her take those guys out too easily, or it would soften the whole film.  Salt is very efficient — she doesn’t really want to kill anyone.”

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 Salt opens across the Philippines on July 28. It is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.  Visit www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and like the fan page to get the latest movie news, video clips, and contests.

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Post me a note at mylene@goldsgym.com.ph or mylenedayrit@gmail.com.