Angelina Jolie wanted to play Bond

Los Angeles: Jolie was once approached to play the Bond girl in `Casino Royale` but the actress declined the offer, saying she would prefer to be the 007 spy.

The 35-year-old star recalls a meeting with Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a few years back when amongst other projects they discussed `Casino Royale`. "We had this lovely, playful talk about the fact that I would have preferred to have played Bond. I think they were thinking that maybe I could play the girl in the movie but I was pregnant at the time and I couldn`t have done it. And it wasn`t right for me. But I guess the idea stuck with Amy because years later she called me and said `I think I`ve found it`," Jolie said in a statement. The `it` in question was `Salt`, her upcoming spy thriller, which was originally written for a male actor. The script was reworked to be adapted to make the protagonist, a CIA agent accused of being a sleeper spy for the Russians, into a female lead. "Females in those films rely on being female but we wanted to ignore that. She`s just Salt. It`s not about being a female and she certainly doesn`t use her sexuality to get anything in the film," said Jolie. Jolie, who plays CIA officer Evelyn Salt in the movie, has performed most of the stunts herself that included gritty fight sequences, edging along a tiny ledge 12 stories high and leaping on to moving cars. The film releases in India on July 23 in Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu. PTI