Angelina Jolie Quickly Diffused All ‘Sexual Tension’ With This ‘X-Men’ Star in Their 2010 Film ‘Salt’
Angelina Jolie could sometimes be a pretty overwhelming presence even for other co-stars and celebrities. But her personality was a pleasant surprise for this former X-Men villain, who was admittedly very nervous with the idea of working with Jolie.
Former ‘X-Men’ Star was worried about potential sexual tension between himself and Angelina Jolie
Jolie has made a few movie co-stars anxious in the past. But X-Men Origins: Wolverine actor Liev Schreiber felt that Jolie possessed all the physical qualities to make him somewhat uneasy around the megastar.
“I hadn’t known her very well, at all,” Schreiber once told Cinemablend. “I was very nervous in the beginning. I get very nervous around famous people and I get nervous around beautiful women. This was a big double whammy for me and initially really uncomfortable, which was worrying me.”
Schreiber collaborated alongside Jolie on the thriller Salt, which saw Jolie playing a highly skilled government agent. Schreiber was cast as one of the government officials at odds with Jolie’s character. To do his role justice, Schreiber felt he had to overcome his anxiety around the Tomb Raider star.
“I felt like the important part of the job for me was to develop familiarity with her because that was the humanizing factor,” Schreiber said.
But getting to know Jolie was easier than Schreiber would’ve thought, as they both shared a few common interests. This also helped curb any lingering sexual discomfort between the two.
“But then we bonded over kids very quickly. I have 2 small kids and she has 2 small kids and it quickly became, ‘Oh you’re doing time-outs now? That’s just teething,’ And all the sexual tension went out of the room. All the anxiety about her being very famous and a super-human celebrity kind of went away and I found this very nice easy person that I could relate to,” Schreiber said.
Liev Schreiber was relieved to see this one flaw in Angelina Jolie
Jolie may be seen as one of the highest standards of beauty to many, including Schreiber. But working alongside her, Schreiber joked that he was glad to see she wasn’t too physically perfect. At least in terms of her height.
“She’s a lot shorter than I thought she would be, but I was pleased by that,” he once quipped to New York Daily News. “I’m happy there was a flaw.”
According to Celeb Heights, Angelina Jolie is 5 feet, -6 inches. In comparison to Schrieber’s own frame of 6 feet, -2inches, it might be easy to see why he saw Jolie as on the shorter side.
Liev Schreiber was nervous Angelina Jolie would force him to star in another movie with her
Schreiber quipped that he was concerned that Jolie would use her standing in Hollywood to greenlight a picture he wasn’t excited to star in. There was a sequence in the film where Jolie dressed up in drag, which even briefly freaked out ex-husband Brad Pitt. Ironically, it was noted that Schreiber had also dressed up in drag as well in a previous project.
This gave Jolie an idea for a film that involved Schreiber and his Salt co-star Chiwetel Ejiofor.
“I’m actually nervous because Angelina is very powerful in Hollywood and she’s got it in her head that she wants to do a movie with her, I, and Chiwetel, where Chiwetel and I are the girls and she’s a man,” Schreiber recalled. “I have a feeling that she’s actually going to make this happen. I’ve been thinking about doing a cop show with Chiwetel where we’re cross-dressers called Sassy and Butch. I’m Butch.”
