W I D E R SCREENINGS TM presents...
CAST PROFILES
CHARLIZE THERON (1975-)
FILMOGRAPHY: Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995); 2 Days in the Valley (1996); That Thing You Do (1996); Trial and Error (1997); The Devil's Advocate (1997); Celebrity (1998); Mighty Joe Young (1998); The Astronaut's Wife (1999); The Cider House Rules (1999); Reindeer Games (2000); The Yards (2000); Men of Honor (2000); The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000); Sweet November (2001); Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001); 15 Minutes (2001); Trapped (2002); Waking Up in Reno (2002); The Italian Job (2002); Monster (2003); The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004); Head in the Clouds (2004); North Country (2005); Aeon Flux (2005); In the Valley of Elah (2007); Sleepwalking (2007); Hancock (2008); Battle in Seattle (2008); The Burning Plain (2009); The Road (2009);
_______________________________________________________
Biographical Details: an Introduction to Charlize Theron
An only child, Charlize Theron was born and raised in South Africa to African parents of European heritage (mother German and father French) on a farm outside Benoni close to Johannesburg. As a girl, she developed a love of ballet.
At 15, her mother killer her drunken and assaultive father in self-defense: as her mother was attacked by her husband, she did not face any charges for the killing. What effect the incident had on the young Charlize was the subject of much speculation following her elevation to the Hollywood A-list. In these later years Theron would lament that biographers didn’t simply just reveal this detail as the matter-of-fact occurrence she feels it was, adding that she did not believe in “charmed lives” and that life is in part reacting to tragedy and failure as best as one can. As a developing woman, Charlize quickly rebounded from this incident, later retrospectively commenting on the attention given this biographic detail that:
“People want to think that I am this tortured soul, that my work is drawn only from this one well. And though I would never sit here and say that it didn't mark me, or mould me into the person that I am, my life has had many painful journeys and heartbreaks since my father died, many of which I draw on for my work.”
CHARLIZE THERON:
FAN TRIBUTE VIDEO CULTURE
THRIVING ON YOUTUBE
At 16 Theron faced fresh opportunity when she won a local modelling contest involving a trip to Milan and a turn on the Italian catwalk. Thereafter, she pursued modelling opportunities in Europe and went to New York with Paulene’s Model Management. Though the camera adored her, with few opportunities to fulfill her childhood love of ballet Theron stayed in New York following her one year modelling contract and accepted a ballet scholarship to New York’s Joffrey Ballet, for whom she would perform in both Swan Lake and The Nutcracker Suite. Complementing her love of ballet she continued to find additional work as a photo model, but after a severe knee injury could not resume her ballet career and begun looking afresh for career opportunities.
Her mother suggested she try acting and bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles and gave her a $500 cheque to start up.
The suggestion resonated with Theron who as a young woman had become enamoured of actor Tom Hanks after seeing him in the hit Splash, opposite Darryl Hannah: indeed Theron felt jealous of Hannah and lated admitted thinking that she could have done a better job in the role. Enthusiastically following her mother’s new instruction, Theron went to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. When a bank refused to cash her mother’s cheque (as it was out of state) she was furious and in the ensuing scene so impressed an agent / manager that he gave her his card and agreed to represent her if she learn English properly, which she did by watching a steady diet of American TV soap-operas – a story she revealed in 2003 on the TV show “Shootout”.
______________________________________
THERON GLAMOUR PHOTOGRAPHY:
THE SEX SYMBOL / MODEL AS ICON
Early Career: Resisting the Lure of Femme Fatale but succumbing to Playboy
After being cast in a non-speaking role in a horror movie sequel, Children of the Corn III: Urban Sacrifice (1995) amounting to a mere 3 seconds of screen time, she took acting lessons and auditioned for the lead role in Showgirls (a part that went to another newcomer, Elizabeth Berkley, and proved a career killer) within 8 months she landed her first major supporting role.
She impressing critics and audiences alike as the femme fatale in the Quentin Tarantino inspired Two Days in the Valley (1996) her first film for director John Herzfeld (a screenwriter best known for teaming John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in the ill-fated 1985 romance Two of a Kind) and a clever multi-character genre picture based firmly on San Fernando Valley California pop culture. Though the film was critically well-received, it was overwhelmed by the contemporaneous noir-driven pulp fiction multi-character work of Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), films much more vicious and cynical than the restrained Herzfeld could manage. Thus, the film became, alongside such as Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995) and City of Industry (1997), part of a dismissed series of crime thrillers which flourished following the popularization of Tarantino: amngst these, 2 Days in the Valley is easily the most humane and amiable.
As Herzfeld’s femme fatale nevertheless, an icy blonde bombshell lover holding her own against the coldly ruthless but charming assassin played by James Spader, Theron projected a lethal and intoxicating mix of dangerous availability and it was in this capacity that she first began to essay the complexities of female sexuality, though here within a line of descent from classic noir to contemporary pulp fiction. Playing a Norwegian, Theron as an actress now had to master three accents – European, American and her native South African. It was her catfight scene with Teri Hatcher that endeared her to male audiences, though she was injured in the scene, an erotic spectacle which gains due to its realism and, as director Herzfeld recalled to WENN news, the violent over-enthusiasm of co-star Hatcher who decked the gorgeous Theron:
“Teri's first punch clocked Charlize sending her reeling to the floor. We had to bring out the ice to minimize any swelling. Teri was very contrite and apologetic, but there was palpable tension on the set. Their adrenaline went way up which is why that scene is so electric in the movie."
Making her mark in a sexy, knock-down catfight, the relationship between sexuality, glamour and the complexities of feminine humanism, Hollywood stereotyping and gender role-playing would be a subject of personal interest to Theron as a maturing woman. Indeed, she was so good and so sexy as a femme fatale that she was offered a number of similar roles, all of which she resisted, not wishing to be typecast, even though it meant work was scarce:
"I had to hold out for two years after playing the femme fatale in Two Days In The Valley because people wanted me to play that role. I think there was a conscious effort on my part to hold back and I didn't work for two years and I waited and really fought for roles in The Devil's Advocate and The Yards, Cider House Rules… I went out on auditions and flew myself out (for movies) and almost went to prison and didn't wash my hair to break this idea of what people thought of me."
Indeed, it would be Theron’s unashamed and unreserved physical, sexual and intellectual self-confidence that would see her amass one of the most diverse bodies of work ever put together by an A-list actress, ranging from dire Hollywood money-making banality to complex evocations of femininity and sexual socialization from a humanist analysis. That, combined with her increasing support of pro-abortion women’s rights would see her become one of the most popular celebrities and influential women in Hollywood by the end of the first decade of the C21st, respected as a successful woman and both adored and desired as a sex symbol, her numerous pictures donning the trashy Celebrity gossip magazines forever clamouring over paparazzi driven flesh pictures and details of her measurements (36B-24-36 according to Celebrity Sleuth Magazine). Remaining friends with her first-feature director Herzfeld, she would work with him again some six years later, on the much higher profile 15 Minutes (2001), a satire on America’s celebrity culture, the same genitalia-flash pop culture that would increasingly flock to her as a glamour and sex icon, often to her chagrin.
______________________________________
Tasting the Mainstream Genre Formula in the Hollywood Establishment
Her teenage infatuation with Tom Hanks came full circle when she was consequently cast in Hanks’ own directorial debut, That Thing You Do! (1996), an innocuous tribute to rock ‘n roll Americana in the warmly nostalgic portrayal of a one-hit wonder rock band.
It was a personal project for Hanks though and gave Theron a chance to act – in her second girlfriend role – in a mainstream crowd-pleaser after the niche market targeted by Herzfeld in Two Days in the Valley in which she was part of an accomplished ensemble. Critics liked Hanks’ film, Hanks being Hollywood’s most popular romantic lead after the hit Sleepless in Seattle (1993), but jaded US audiences were indifferent and Theron went little noticed in this context but her decorative value. Shortly afterwards, she was cast opposite Seinfeld sitcom star Michael Richards in the failed comedy Trial and Error (1996) but her career finally blossomed after she was cast opposite Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino in the sharp courtroom drama / moral satire The Devil’s Advocate (1997), director Taylor Hackford’s sly assessment of morality, temptation and the repercussions of morally relative free will, another humanist satire despite its religious allegory and with Pacino in especially fine form.Here again, though the film centred on the allure of masculine power and moral relativism it was her clever portrayal of a range of feminine emotions, desires, strengths and weaknesses within such surrounding authority that shone through.
However, Theron’s work visa had expired and she was working illegally in Hollywood on The Devil’s Advocate. America’s immigration department caught up with her and she was forced to leave the country briefly before returning to pursue her career.
An enamoured Woody Allen then cast her as the supermodel in his comedic indictment of celebrity journalism and its associated bed-hopping, Celebrity (1998). Here, Theron used her background as a model to clever effect in yet another interpretation of female sexual stereotyping from a humanist complexity. Her first acting award nomination (a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress) came for her family-friendly lead in the Disney-esque fantasy Mighty Joe Young (1998) about a large gorilla and noteworthy primarily for its relationship to Theron’s later interest in animal activism. A box-office flop overwhelmed by the simultaneous release of Godzilla, it was the first time Theron had primary acting responsibility for carrying a picture. Critics felt the film was ruined by its Disney-esque sensibilities and Theron, despite her popular award nomination, was saddled with a dud. Always on the lookout for interesting projects, Theron, however, rebounded quickly.
______________________________________
THERON IN HER OWN WORDS:
THE INTERVIEWS
with the New York Times
with David Letterman
with Ellen Degeneres
Career Success, Sexuality & an Escape from Typecasting
Lest she be typecast for her model looks and girlfriend / sex symbol roles she was awarded more complex women’s roles in The Astronaut’s Wife and The Cider House Rules, two films of 1999.
For The Astronaut’s Wife she was cast with Johnny Depp in a sci-fi thriller with Twilight Zone allusions: like The Devil’s Advocate, her role as wife was primarily a means of measuring the central male character’s moral dilemmas but she impressed the critics in her supporting performance, many genre enthusiasts noting the allusions in Theron’s costuming and hairstyle to Woody Allen’s former wife Mia Farrow’s work in the 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby (the decision to star in which had ended Farrow’s previous marriage to original Rat Packer Frank Sinatra). Slowly, Theron was weaving her way into the inter-textuality of American film culture. However, The Astronaut’s Wife was another flop despite recognition in the sci-fi festival scene, with an award nomination in the prestigious 1999 Catalonian International Film Festival. Theron fared better with The Cider House Rules, which saw her receive her second popular Award nomination (a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress) while the American Motion Picture Academy recognized her co-star Michael Caine with a Best Actor Oscar.
Her films were now becoming increasingly prestigious projects, though it would be her model looks and sexual desirability that would soon propel her career as Theron was chosen by Vanity Fair in January 1999 under the provocative heading “White Hot Venus”, a label which informed her work in the subsequent 1999 releases. Her status as sex icon was confirmed when she thereafter posed for Playboy (May 1999). On her uninhibitedness, Theron later commented:
“I think of myself as a highly sexual creature. I have to use that. I have no choice. I like it. I didn't grow up with a mother telling me what was under my clothes was bad or evil.”
Following her rapid inclusion in – 1) People magazine’s list of the 50 Most Beautiful People, 2) FHM Taiwan’s list of the 100 Most Beautiful people (she was 4th) and 3) a number one ranking on the Internet poll of most beautiful people (edging out both Cameron Diaz and Kate Beckinsale) – Theron starred opposite Ben Affleck and Gary Sinese in veteran director John Frankenheimer’s final thriller Reindeer Games (2000) as a more accomplished femme fatale. Appearing here in sex scenes and a topless swimming pool scene with Gary Sinese, Theron was a knockout and, in a dynamic performance, captured the vulnerability and dangerous allure of the screen siren and film noir archetype of the femme fatale with more complexity than allowed her in Two Days in the Valley. Again, never wont to be typecast in her exploration of femininity Theron was cast by Robert Redford in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) before turning down an offer to star in director Michael Bay’s lavish Pearl Harbour opposite Ben Affleck to re-unite with her Devil’s Advocate co-star Keanu Reeves for the seldom seen Sweet November (2001). Always savvy, Theron pondered:
“Looks alone won't get you that far. It may get you in the door, but there's always somebody younger, somebody prettier. You have to rely on something else.”
She re-united first with Woody Allen on Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) and John Herzfeld for 15 Minutes (2001) and in 2002 starred in one of Hollywood’s glamourous hits, The Italian Job, opposite Matt Damon. A criminal caper movie it complemented her previous 2001 work for director Gary Gray in the crime meller The Yards opposite Mark Wahlberg. Between the two crime films, Theron sensed another opportunity to make her mark on gender archetypes within American genre cinema following her femme fatale debut in Two Days in the Valley. Her finest work – and true breakthrough performance – subsequently emerged when she played serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the bio-pic Monster (2003) for which she gained 30 pounds and endured makeup which downplayed her beauty in order to capture the reality of Wuornos: a ragged looking truckstop / highway hooker who murdered her clients after one of them tried to rape her. Here, she completed inverted, demythologized and humanized the “femme fatale” archetype in the evocation of the wholly constraining pressures of American socio-economic disenfranchisement – here was the ugly reality and complex sexuality of the unglamourous “femme fatale” informed by the failure of the American Dream of success, family and marriage.
______________________________________
Independence and Academy Award Triumph
A truly humanist vision of feminine frustration, rage, resentment and sexual empowerment within a Patriarchal system Monster was a showcase less of serial killer pathology than of the harrowing sexual oppression facing women and sex workers in a Patriarchal culture.
Monster conclusively enabled Theron to now essay the full complexity of female sexual pathology and the unglamourous depth of her performance (for which she wore prosthetic teeth) saw her receive an Academy Award for Best Actress as well as a Golden Globe, making her only the second actress to receive such an award (the Oscar) after posing nude for Playboy, the first such actress being Kim Basinger (for 1997’s LA Confidential). Linked forever to sex appeal and glamour through her Playboy sex appeal, Theron proved herself an actress of considerable substance in Monster, a film which gains from awareness of her interest in the full breadth of feminine experience and sexual self-definition, often in defiance of the expectations and vanity now expected of her as a sexy celebrity, with articles about her now proliferating in celebrity and fanzines.
Following her Award triumph, she returned to South Africa for a hero’s welcome, personally embraced by Nelson Mandella (a turn of events which reduced her to tears) who thanked her for putting South Africa “on the map” in such a dignified way. Indeed, Theron was the first African-born actress to ever receive an Academy Award. However, back in the facile USA, critics began asking how she reconciled her willingness to play unglamourous roles with her availability for glamour spreads, to which Theron responded:
“Well, guess what? I'm a sexual creature. There's nothing wrong with that. Why do we have to be ashamed of being so many different things? Why do we have to be only one thing, a good mother or a hooker? I don't think that what's under my clothes is evil. I'm a woman, I'm feminine. And I like the way I look. And I celebrate that. And I don't make excuses for that… People just aren't willing to see conflict, or ugliness or the more flawed side of life through a female character's eyes. I mean, can you imagine a woman playing Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)? When Robert De Niro does it it's fine, [but] people are very uncomfortable about seeing that through a woman's eyes. We aren't allowed complexity.”
Her interest in the expansiveness and complexity of femininity led to her playing sex symbol Britt Ekland in the biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) and glamour endorsement indeed soon proved profitable, with Theron soon gaining $2 million a year for lending her image to Dior’s J’Adore fragrance and $3 million a year for endorsing Swiss watchmaker Raymond Weil. By 2006, however, Weil sued her and her loan-out company for breach a contract, a lawsuit eventually settled out of court in 2008. Constantly faced with calls to explain her polarizing career choices in gender terms, Theron later stated that:
“Look, I can't forget I'm a woman. I love being a woman and I love being feminine, so that will always be part of my work, obviously. But I approach the material with a more humanistic approach. I think that kind of stuff can become over-earnest if you approach it with a big hammer. Personally I've been lucky. Maybe it's the way I was raised, but I know right from wrong and I know wrong when I walk into a room - and if I feel it's wrong, I walk right out again.”
Despite a high profile, Theron continued to accept projects which interested her on a personal level, making a close friend out of her North Country (2005) co-star Jeremy Renner, an invigorating actor whose later performance in the highly acclaimed The Hurt Locker (2010) would make him one of Hollywood’s new breed of actors. Her role in North Country resulted in Theron’s second Academy Award nomination, as well as Best Actress BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actor’s Guild nominations. By her role in Aeon Flux (2005), tied into popular video-game culture, Theron now commanded a $10 million salary. An injury forced a temporary break from filming Aeon Flux but Theron quickly returned to work. For her role in 2007’s In the Valley of Elah, by which time she had taken out US citizenship, she again downplayed her natural attractiveness, a decision that was questioned by many and which she yet again had to defend:
“It just bummed me out because I was, "What do you want? Do you want me to play a detective from Albuquerque who's a single mom in a Dior dress?" The way they focused on my appearance, I felt like it hurt [the film] and I was embarrassed because [director] Paul Haggis had worked really hard, and just because I had a ponytail that's what they were talking about.”
The film, however, was a complex evocation of the trauma of the Bush-led Iraq War and was praised by Time magazine critic Richard Corliss as one of the best films of the year. Theron too became increasingly involved in political activism, campaigning for women’s rights and the pro-abortion lobby as well as coming out in support of same-sex marriage and lending her endorsement to animal liberationist group Peta.
______________________________________
Cementing Her Career, Her Way
Theron now alternated between mainstream glamourous work of a relatively undemanding nature and provocative studies of feminine sexuality, the complexity of which and its denial under Patriarchal authority had interested her since her work in Monster.
Thus, while venturing into film production in her joint behind-the-scenes and lead actress capacity in the seldom-seen and critically lambasted Sleepwalking (2008) she was re-united with her Bagger Vance co-star Will Smith for the lavishly budgeted comicbook superhero parody movie Hancock (2008). Also in 2008 she starred for her long-time lover, debuting director Stuart Townsend, in Battle in Seattle, a political film about protests greeting the World Trade Association and compared by popular critic Roger Ebert to Haskell Wexler’s counter-culture classic Medium Cool (1969). Indeed, in humanist films which combined complex evocations of feminine sexuality within a context of Patriarchal political, cultural and socio-economic oppression and socialization, Theron truly excelled as an actress: mature, intelligent and unreservedly sexy.
In an ironic development indicative of her interest in humanist feminine complexity, she was concurrently cast opposite her Playboy-posing-and-Academy-Award-winning compatriot Kim Basinger as daughter and mother for the Matriarchal socialization drama The Burning Plain (2009) this time playing a self-destructive sex addict and gaining her second Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress. This film, for acclaimed Mexican screenwriter turned director Guillermo Arriaga (who after the success of Three Burials, 21 Grams and Babel in 2003-2007 was responsible for a wave of Mexican filmmaking talent entering Hollywood), was again of personal significance to Theron, who felt indebted to her own mother:
“My mother was an incredible example to me. I can't imagine going through life without her. I think she has influenced who I am, but without intent really. She would always say, 'That's how I feel, but you should figure it out for yourself.' I think of my life now and I realise that the way I was brought up is why I can deal with so much now. I'm responsible for my own actions, my own decisions. So it's a weird one, because she didn't want me to be her, but I think now, at 32, I look at her and I kind of go, 'Wow, I somehow aspire to be you.' I think she really values me being independent and being myself.”
After lending her presence to the post-apocalyptic odyssey The Road (2009), which re-united her with the producer of The Yards, in flashback scenes in which her character was significantly expanded from that in the original source novel (which she had admired so much as to accept the role) she was contacted to star in Hancock 2, in development at time of writing. In many ways Theron epitomizes the aspirations of success of every young woman who comes to Hollywood with the dream of being a movie star and yet in her career choices has managed to demonstrate an affinity for subjects of more personal interest with demonstrable consistency and depth of talent. In 2009 she formed a charitable organization, Charlize Theron’s Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), and by 2010 had no less than five future Hollywood film projects in development.
______________________________________
FURTHER READING
Visit and Support Charlize Theron's Charity: The Africa Outreach Project
INTERESTED IN SEEING CHARLIZE THERON NAKED?
View Charlize Theron's Naked Filmography Here
(This is an adults-only link and by following it you acknowledge being over 18 and legally entitled to view sexually explicit imagery in your location)
CHARLIZE THERON PURCHASE INFORMATION
