Though Gard insists he never intended for Lara to be drool fodder - despite how Eidos positioned her in the popular imagination - he still gave her a Jessica Rabbit body with a tiny waist and giant chest. "That's just not the character in the games. "I think it was one of the things that riled up Toby and all of us, when the marketing got ahold of her and used her as a glamour model," developer Gavin Rummery told Entertainment Weekly. But as integral as the human Laras are to her legacy, the game's creators did not welcome them when they were introduced.
Even in animated form, Lara hawked soft drinks and appeared on magazine covers.
Her reign proved controversial, thanks to a Playboy shoot that turned into a legal battle for Eidos.įor Eidos, the models were an extension of a vast marketing operation. McAndrew took on the role in 1998, as part of the Tomb Raider III press bonanza. In 2012, the number of women who have "played" Lara over the years earned the franchise a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for "most real-life stand-ins." Nathalie Cook is credited as the first Lara model in 1996 Rhona Mitra, an actress who appeared on The Strain, is perhaps the most famous. "People proposed to me." McAndrew at a fan event in New York | Courtesy of Nell McAndrew I just didn't realize just how popular the game was until I actually saw the crowds." The phenomenon was real, and energized. There would be lots of males - mainly males. "Everybody was just lovely," McAndrew tells Thrillist. Rather, the Brit would wield Lara's signature weapons for Eidos Interactive, appearing at expos and department stores, providing a living, breathing, tour-able counterpart for the digital dream girl. But unlike Angelina Jolie or Alicia Vikander, the Oscar winner currently playing the adventuring heiress in the latest Tomb Raider adaptation, McAndrew was not hired to bring Lara Croft to life on-screen. McAndrew, suited up and brandishing two pistols, would realize her in the flesh. Lara was a 3-D avatar cast from the Indiana Jones mold. The growing gaming industry wasn't on McAndrew's radar, but soon she would inhabit the role of a video-game icon: Lara Croft, the heroine of Tomb Raider. Nell McAndrew was a 20-something model living in London in the late 1990s when her agent told her to grab a dark wig and head to an audition.