Angelina Jolie reveals how she quit nicotine after smoking two packs a day

Angelina Jolie is opening up about an old bad habit. The 49-year-old actress shared that before her turn as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider almost 25 years ago, she smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. In a Q&A with film critic Leonard Maltin at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival this week, Jolie recalled playing the video game heroine, and how the role forced her to get healthy. 'I admittedly came [in] smoking two packs a day and completely had to change my health and my life and discover that I could do things I didn't know I could do,' she said.

She added that the 2001 movie would go on to 'change everything' for her. Jolie went on to explain that she trained 'really hard' for Tomb Raider, which forced her to break out of her vices. Angelina Jolie shared that before getting in shape for her turn as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, she used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day; pictured on February 5. 'I admittedly came [in] smoking two packs a day and completely had to change my health and my life and discover that I could do things I didn't know I could do,' she said about preparing for Tomb Raider; Jolie seen smoking in the 2024 film Maria.

Her new fit lifestyle led to her dropping her smoking routine, swapping it out for a healthier normal. 'For Tomb Raider there were a few months of just nothing but multiple training sessions a day: morning, noon and night,' the Oscar-winning star recalled. 'And I didn't want anything but good food, water, and sleep at a certain point.'. 'I was in training and that's what your body [wants]… You change,' Angelina told Maltin.

Once the film was completed, the Hollywood vet said about smoking cigarettes: 'I never did it again…Well, I think I did once or twice.'. Angelina was awarded the Maltin Modern Master award at the annual film fest on Wednesday night. And during her acceptance speech, she got emotional while sharing memories of her late mother Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007. She got choked up as she praised her mom for always supporting her acting career after she gave up her own dreams of becoming a creative.

Jolie, now a mom-of-six herself, revealed Marcheline used to write letters to all of her movie characters. 'For Tomb Raider there were a few months of just nothing but multiple training sessions a day: morning, noon and night,' the Oscar-winning star recalled; Jolie seen in the 2001 film. Angelina was awarded the Maltin Modern Master award at the annual film fest on Wednesday. And during her acceptance speech, she got emotional while sharing memories of her late mother Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007; pictured in 2001.

'I'm very thankful to be a part of this community, many people go through life without a creative outlet,' Angelina said on stage earlier this week. 'I think of my mother, she had to give up her dreams of a creative life but she embraced that side of mine. 'My mother would write letters to my characters — Dear Gia, Dear Lisa Rowe, Dear Lara Croft — and for the last 16 years, I haven't had those letters,' the star said.

She added that she wonders what her mother would write to her latest character, opera singer Maria Callas, who she portrayed in the 2024 biopic Maria. 'I try to imagine sometimes what she would write, and she would probably have told Maria that she loved her because Maria had many things but she never had a mother's love,' she went on. 'I would be absolutely nothing without mine. She passed away many years ago at this time of year, so it's always this weather that reminds me of her.