Here’s another black tee shirt. I took this photo of a movie action scene while trying to figure out the actress’s bra size. Afterward, I found a June 2001 interview in which the actress said that her character, who is supposed to be a 36DD, was made into a 36D for the movie series. The actress herself claimed to be a 36C.

Who is this actress, and what size do you think she really is?

Answer: Angelina Jolie.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

NYRock:  Since we’re on the topic of getting into shape, what changes did you go through for your, you know, bust out role as Lara?

Angelina Jolie: C’mon, I’m not so flat chested to begin with. When I wear a tight T-shirt, I look a certain way. So it wasn’t like we had to completely change me. You know, we just had to enhance me a little.

I’m a 36C. Lara, she’s a 36D. And in the game, she’s a double D, so we took her down some. But we did give her a bit of padding there. For me, it was simply one size. So it was like having a padded bra. But no, I am not flat chested anyway.

So we still made it Lara Croft, but we didn’t go to any extremes. And Lara doesn’t apologize for herself, and for having that, you know, recognizable shape. So I’m not going to apologize for her either. Personally, I wouldn’t want those breasts. They seem kinda funny to me.

But we did want to put in something for those hardcore game fans. Lara has those big breasts in the game. We didn’t want to make them as big as in the game, but at the same time we didn’t want to take away from her the things that are, you know, her trademarks.

But I don’t know what all this fixation is about anyway. There are certainly lots of women in movies with big breasts. I mean, there are a lot of actresses with huge breasts, and characters with nothing but cleavage.

Beyond Angelina’s fictional bra size, I’ve taken an interest in the Lara Croft character after watching part of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life at the gym the other day. I write about what caught my interest on today’s Campbell & Kate blog post.

Last year, I wrote about the strong but small-chested female characters on Nikita, Burn Notice and Covert Affairs and asked if anyone could think of a large-breasted heroine who is the main character in an action movie or television show. Now I’ve found one: Lara Croft.

As a computer animation, Lara doesn’t have to worry about sports bras, exposed bra straps or gapping shirts, but I appreciate that she even exists.  According to her Wikipedia entry, there’s some criticism of her unrealistic body shape and concerns that she might be a negative role model for young girls. Granted, many of the images I dug up were unrealistic, mostly because of the ultra-tiny waists. But many weren’t.  If you study the image below, you’ll see that even Lara must deal with a little bit of the Strum Strum Factor. As for her body shape, haven’t you seen women with these proportions? Some of you see them in the mirror every morning, don’t you?

In searching for fit models for my shirts, I’ve discovered attitudes about the dimensions I’ve requested that are simultaneously hilarious and sad. You can read them here and here. If I were an athletic tween or adolescent who was beginning to develop large breasts, I would find Lara Croft’s existence–and Angelina Jolie’s mislabeled portrayal of her–reassuring.