Is Angelina Jolie Too Thin in Her 'Salt' Action Scenes?

By John Mitchell Posted Jul 30th 2010 05:13PM

Angelina Jolie kicks butt. Literally. Perhaps more than any other actress, Jolie exudes a kind of physicality that is primal and integral to who she is. While digital effects and camera tricks can turn just about any performer into a breathing action figure, we imagine that Jolie probably could handle herself in a real-life fight. There's something dangerous about her; its part of why we love her.

Once again, her brawling skills are front and center – this time in 'Salt,' a physical endurance test of a film that has Jolie jumping out of helicopters, bounding down city streets, scaling buildings and leaping from semi to semi in a chase scene for the ages. But sitting in the audience this time around, watching her do what she does best, I couldn't shake the thought that the actress looked uncommonly frail. How did she kick that guy off his motorcycle when it looks like she'd have trouble carrying Knox and Viv at the same time?

PopEater spoke with New York City-based personal trainer Kenville John of Hanson Fitness about the risks Jolie faced by taking on the action-packed film in such a seemingly fragile state.

According to her longtime stunt coordinator Simon Crane, Jolie performs nearly all of her own stunts and only under studio duress does she agree to use a stand-in. To prepare for the grueling fight sequences in 'Salt,' "We got her learning a combination of Muay Thai and Krav Maga," Crane told US magazine. Jolie reportedly trained for two hours a day three or four times a week to prepare for the film.

Krav Maga is a hand-to-hand combat system taught to elite special forces around the world. Developed in Israel, it is notable for it brutality, with a heavy focus on wrestling, grappling and striking. Muay Thai, meanwhile, is a kickboxing-based martial art that originated in Thailand. It is sometimes known as the "Art of Eight Limbs" or the "Science Of Eight Limbs" because it focuses on punches, kicks and elbow and knee strikes.

But John sees no evidence of her exhausting workout regimen and isn't sure she'd even be able to perform the tasks if she tried. "This is a body that's breaking down," he says. "This has gone too far. I just don't think she possesses the physical strength to perform like that."

Was Angelina's ability to perform her stunts in 'Salt' compromised by her dwindling physique – and compensated for with the odd bit of movie magic? And where exactly did those 'Tomb Raider' and 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' muscles go?

Suspension of disbelief suspended, it's all I could think about while watching the film, a non-stop, breathlessly paced spy thriller. How could she possibly climb down an elevator shaft when her arms look like they're about to snap in two? And I know I wasn't alone in noticing the disconnect. Discussing an on-foot chase scene through the streets of Washington, D.C. with a good friend, he simply said, "Listen, she looked like she was going to break in half. I haven't seen the inside of a gym since high school and I could have caught her."

John believes Jolie to be "about 20 percent underweight," and suggests any film director – in the case of 'Salt,' Phillip Noyce – would "have to be out of his mind" to use her in an extreme action sequence because her physical condition could leave her vulnerable to injury.

Indeed, John worries Jolie may have put herself in very real danger by attempting the demanding stunts when she wasn't in an appropriate physical condition to do so. "For you to sustain something, a leap, a fall, the muscle has to be there to sustain the impact," he says. "Joints have to bend a certain way, and what supports joints? Muscle. Without it, joints would just crash into each other. It could be catastrophic – ligament tearing, broken bones, the worst."

Jolie's rail-thin frame has been the subject of media scrutiny since as early as 2007. In January of that year, she lost her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, to ovarian cancer. Jolie and her mother were very close, and she took the loss particularly hard.

At the New York premiere of her film 'A Mighty Heart' that year, Jolie told US, "I've always been lean and this year I lost my mom and I've gone through a lot ... Instead of people saying I look like a person dealing with something emotionally, they assume it's because I want to fit into skinny jeans."

The criticisms have surfaced again and again since, but now, with her once legendarily buff bod blown up on the big screen, laying the bad guys to waste, it's difficult to not again wonder if she is indeed too thin to fight. It may be flawed, but 'Salt' is, as New York magazine best puts it, "a senseless blast," and Angelina Jolie is the reason why.

All of the fast-paced fun may well have seemed more sensible if the film's leading lady didn't look like she was buckling under the weight of the fire extinguisher she fashioned into a grenade launcher.

Tags: angelina jolie

Comments

(87)

Monday 02 August

By Seriously?

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Yes, she's way too thin. She could stand to put on about 50 pounds and then she'll look normal.

By John

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Her body is the least of her problems, her bad acting and scowling skank face is her real tour de force.

Tuesday 03 August

By Some guy

Too thin for what?

By partly0cloudy

Angenline Jolie looks fantastic, thus the reason she still stars in movies.. and you can tell she is a naturally slender woman. All the haters here are just jealous of her radiant natural beauty or it's just backlash from the "it's okay to be fat and proud" attitude running through fat American veins these days.

By myly

The action scenes in Salt are a joke. This thin girl could not beat up a twelve year old boy. No girl unless she is on steroids is going to beat up any full grown man. This is as realistic as a 5 year old "blackbelt" defending himself

Thursday 05 August

By Cutie

.I guess I hit a nerve but last night on Deal or no Deal I noticed that there were 25 young women just standing with suitcases and none of them were fat, chubby or pleasingly plump. Jobs go to the thin. In this country thinness is valued in the workplace if you can't see that you aren't looking.

Monday 06 September

By Tammy

To Christian: The single skinny women are sleeping with the fat women's husbands. I mean really I do not know a single person that is turned on by fat! That is just gross. Angelina looks like a stick person and her stunts looked like they came out of a cartoon. She sucked in this movie, she is to frail looking, not sexy at all.

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