Did Angelina Jolie refuse to be a Bond Girl? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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Alas, Angelina Jolie turned down the opportunity. Why? Well, she wasn’t looking to be the Bond Girl. She wanted to be Bond herself.
It all started when Sony Pictures’ Amy Pascal made the first move, reaching out to Jolie with the classic offer: play a Bond Girl. But Jolie wasn’t feeling it. “I said, ‘No, I’m not comfortable with that, but I would like to play Bond,'” she admitted. Sure, it was a bold request, but Jolie was a force of nature in Hollywood.
The idea of being a glamorous sidekick wasn’t appealing to her. The joke went something like this: “We laughed,” she recalled, but the idea stuck with her.
Fast forward to a year later, when Pascal called her again with a new proposition. This time, Jolie was intrigued. She confirmed, “I think I found it,” suggesting they found something that would finally match Jolie’s unyielding energy. But even then, it wasn’t quite the Bond Girl role she had in mind.
Here’s the twist: Jolie didn’t turn down Casino Royale because she wasn’t into the Bond Girl gig—she was pregnant! The timing just didn’t match. Still, it showed that even A-listers like her were on Hollywood’s radar for major roles.
Fast forward to Quantum of Solace, and Jolie wasn’t looking for a one-off. She wanted more—like, a recurring role that went beyond just being eye candy. She was done with the typical female roles and ready to make her mark on Bond in a bigger way.
Her next major role? Salt, where she played a secret agent—one originally written for Tom Cruise. But Jolie wasn’t about to just fill in the blanks. She flipped the script (literally), transforming the character into Edwina. “You think it would be easy. You just flip the character from Edwin to Edwina,” she laughed, but the transformation was anything but simple. The physicality of the character had to change, too. Jolie, always a smaller frame, needed to make sure her character didn’t just fight; she fought dirty.
Angelina’s approach to her characters was always different. Instead of being the passive female hero, she made her characters aggressive and resourceful. “We made her meaner than a guy, and dirty,” Jolie explained. “She uses the walls, the fact that she’s lighter and can throw herself around.” It was the “Chihuahua up against the big dogs” scenario—and it worked.
While she never donned the iconic tux or brandished the Walther PPK, Jolie’s pivot to more complex roles reshaped her career. Her rejection of the Bond Girl role wasn’t a loss for her. Instead, it was a chance to take on more transformative, powerful characters that suited her better. And we’re all the better for it.
