“There were a few months of just nothing but multiple training sessions a day,” the actress recalled

Angelina Jolie with FIJI Water At The 40th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival: Maltin Modern Master Award

Angelina Jolie. Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty

Angelina Jolie was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day before filming Tomb Raider forced her to turn her health around.

On Wednesday, Feb. 5, the actress, 49, attended the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in Santa Barbara, Calif., for a conversation about her life and career as she received the Maltin Modern Master award.

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During a Q&A with critic Leonard Maltin, Jolie spoke about her role as video game icon Lara Croft in 2001’s Tomb Raider and her physical preparation for the film.

“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 shared, adding that the movie “would change everything” for her.

LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER, Angelina Jolie, 2001, ©Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

Everett

Jolie said she started training “really hard” for Tomb Raider, which was far from her norm. That fitness routine ultimately led to her quitting smoking as she started making healthier lifestyle changes overall.

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“For Tomb Raider there were a few months of just nothing but multiple training sessions a day: morning, noon and night,” she 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.”

Jolie said that after the film, she had children and just quit smoking for good. The actress is mom of six — Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 18, and twins Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline, 16, whom she shares with ex-husband Brad Pitt, 61.