Oftentimes, even Hollywood A-listers like Angelina Jolie are in need of a little break away from the hustle and stress of on-set filming and it is then that the prospects of work and beautiful scenery happen to merge together into an advantageous opportunity. This is what laid the foundations for the Salt actor to take on the lead role in the action thriller-romance film, The Tourist, even before knowing who was to star opposite her in the male lead.
For Jolie, it seemed she was in need of a break, and shooting an on-location film in Venice seemed like the perfect idea. Meeting Johnny Depp on the set just happened to be a great bonus.
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Angelina Jolie Talks About Landing Her Role in The Tourist
For the better part of the 21st century, few women have held such a regal presence on the screen as Angelina Jolie has with her air of sophistication and grace. Every film that the actress has appeared in, whether an action or romance or a bit of both, has radiated the A-lister at the front and center of each frame and her onscreen presence alone has been enough to create a buzz around the film’s promotion and box office launch.
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The Tourist was, however, different. Angelina Jolie recalls in an interview with IGN how she landed the role in the Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck-directed 2010 film:
“Honestly, this one came about… I had finished Salt and Brad [Pitt] was to work next and he had a small delay in his film, in Moneyball, and so we had a few months and I questioned if there was anything out there that shot in a great location.
That’s the phone call I made! And it was a character I hadn’t done before. Just something new. I got this call that there was this film that happened to shoot in Venice and Paris and it was a real lady.”
Angelina Jolie’s presence in the film as Elise Clifton-Ward, a fugitive from the law, was as expected a spectacular hit. The film, on the other hand, did not manage to create as much of an impressionable success for its audience as expected.
Angelina Jolie Gushes About Johnny Depp & His Humor
During the time that they spent filming The Tourist, it was clear that the two protagonists of the movie formed quite a bond outside of the film’s set. They would later go on to become good friends. But even on their first meeting, Jolie instantly honed in on Johnny Depp and she was impressed by what she found the day she walked onto the set:
“Oh, he’s just such a nice guy. You walk into someone’s office and you see what’s important to them. He’s got lots of books and lots of pictures of his children. So it’s immediately somebody you feel at ease with. He’s a real, experimental, deeply feeling artist, who gives a lot and tries a lot and is very gracious on set to everybody.”
Jolie also goes on to reveal that the two had such a good time that the unreleased outtakes from the film would be a riot to watch for the audience.
“There’s some footage floating round, which I’m surprised hasn’t surfaced… God, there was a good 20 minutes, half-an-hour early on where we could not stop laughing. We wasted a lot of film. And got a lot of producers frustrated. The outtakes of this I’m sure are very funny.”
The Tourist managed to earn $278.78 million worldwide on a production budget of $100 million. The action thriller currently holds a rating of 21% on Rotten Tomatoes and is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Source: IGN
