Angelina Jolie has made a name for herself in the film industry as an actress who takes up pretty much any kind of role. Her characters have an aura to them that is unique to her methods of acting. She has starred in massive projects like her role as the titular character in the Malificent Duology, Mr. and Mrs. Smith with her ex-husband, Brad Pitt, and the 2010 action-thriller, Salt. She has even joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe with her role as Thena in Eternals.
With this much success, there usually comes a tragic, heartwrenching, backstory. and it would seem that Jolie has her own.
Angelina Jolie’s Struggle With Addiction
Angelina Jolie has talked about having quite a rough childhood. She has a difficult relationship with her father after she decided to stay with her mother when her parents separated. She was also heavily bullied in school during her formative years. This caused the actress to slip into quite a dark state and eventually turn to substance abuse for solace. During an interview, with Angelina Jolie’s ex-drug dealer, Franklin Meyer, he talked about what Jolie was doing and what she was like at that time in her life.
“We’d (Franklin and Angelina Jolie) see each other two to three times a week when she was in town. She would buy cocaine and also heroin. She would generally spend about $100 each time – that would buy maybe half a gram of coke and a 10th of a gram of heroin. She would snort the cocaine and the heroin in front of me. It didn’t seem to matter to her who else was there.” He stated.
He talked about how it was quite regular for her to indulge in very hard-core drugs. Franklin also mentioned that she was only 21 years old when they first met. Jolie also went on to later admit that she has tried every drug possible until her sobriety which she credits to her six children.
Angelina Jolie Had To Sober Up For Her $703M Franchise
During a 2001 interview, when Angelina Jolie wasn’t open about her struggles with substance abuse and was probably in the thick of it, she talked about how she had to quit drinking and smoking due to the extensive workout regimen for her movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
It was two and a half months of tough training, I had just wrapped a period piece and I was drinking wine and smoking cigarettes and having a great time.” She stated, “Then I got to the ‘Tomb Raider’ set and the great adventure began. They had me on bunjis. I’m dog sledding. They had me up at seven each morning and handed me a protein shake. Suddenly, a nutritionist was giving me five meals a day.” “But you had to do these things to maintain your energy,” she added. “And I liked the intense training because there is only one way to do something and for me, it’s in extremes.”
The actress went on to say that she was used to drinking and smoking quite regularly but the role of Lara Croft required her to get into shape and for that, she was to do quite difficult training. She was made to wake up at seven in the morning and work out. She was even given a nutritionist. She stated that she quite enjoyed this routine as she liked living her life in the extremes.
Source: Cinema.com
