Before They Were Stars: Angelina Jolie in “Cyborg 2”

One my all-time favourite films is Peter Jackson’s Dead-Alive (a.k.a. Braindead) and the old VHS copy I own had this ridiculous trailer before the movie which always made me laugh for Cyborg 2, a straight-to-video sequel to the not-so-classic Jean-Claude Van Damme original. Well, imagine my surprise several couple years ago when I popped Dead-Alive back into the VCR, re-watched the Cyborg 2 trailer, and realized: “Holy shit! That’s Angelina Jolie!”. Yep, believe it or not, her first leading role was playing the title character in this film, which Angelina apparently hated so much that went an entire year without auditioning for another movie role. Incidentally, the reason this trailer always used to make me laugh was because of Jack Palance’s delivery of one of the dumbest lines I’ve ever heard: “If you want to dine with the Devil, you’ll need a long spoon!”.