Many have considered her the perfect candidate to play the female James Bond. And although Charlize Theron does not want the 007 title added to her growing assortment of badass roles, few can deny that her fierce persona has firmly won her the title of the champion for feminism in Hollywood’s testosterone-charged corridors.
Theron, who personally isn’t the biggest fan of the word ‘feminism’ saying “people get a little freaked out because it’s like we’re being put on a pedestal”, continues to wage her war on male-dominated films with her own dose of fury.
Here are five times that Theron proved herself fiercer than her Mad Max: Fury Road’s Furiosa:
Monster (2003)
Director Patty Jenkins — yes, she has weaved on-screen magic before Wonder Woman — managed to recognise a kindred spirit in Theron, who would later go on to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster and win an Oscar for Best Actress in the bargain.
While Jenkins herself refused to describe Theron’s poignant portrayal of Wuornos as a feminist turn, stating in The Guardian that “it’s a completely universal story”, it cannot be denied that Theron comes across a feminist avenger of sorts who has a vulnerability to her grisly countenance.
Incidentally, Theron — who was fresh off the shoot for The Italian Job — signed on the film for free, believing this female-centric story needed to told.
North Country (2005)
Following her Oscar-winning turn in Monster, Theron used her new Hollywood clout to push hard-hitting stories, with strong female centric roles, into the spotlight. In North Country, Theron plays Josey Aimes, a single mother working in a Minnesota mine who finds herself at the centre of a class-action suit about sexual harassment in the workplace.
Theron earned another Academy Award nomination for this role, and inadvertently, championed the cause for all women to stop being the victim.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Hell hath no fury with Theron’s shaven-headed, one-armed Imperator Furiosa steering the course for feminism with Mad Max: Fury Road.
During the film’s promotions, Theron spoke about the importance of being a feminist, speaking on the US talk show Live! With Kelly and Michael, about being a woman in a male-dominated action genre.
She said: “I’ve always wanted to explore the genre a little bit more, especially because I think it’s such a misconception that women don’t like the genre, or that they don’t want to go and see these movies. I just feel like women have been so misrepresented in these films — why do we have to go and see the genre every single time with the girl in the back of the frame in a push-up bra? Why isn’t there a girl that’s standing on the same playing field with the guys?”
Sticking to her mantra, Theron later told The Guardian: “This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn’t mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you’re doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way.”
The Huntsman (2016)
This sequel (technically prequel) to Snow White and the Huntsman was critically panned but it was Theron’s off-screen devious play that really saw the Oscar winner push boundaries in bridging the Hollywood gender pay gap during The Huntsman: Winter’s War.
Using the Sony emails hack, which showed the disparity between pay on the sets of American Hustle — where cast members Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were short-changed compared to Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper — Theron engineered a $10 million (Dh36.72 million) rise in pay to put her on par with her Hunstman co-star Chris Hemsworth.
Speaking about her stand-off, in a 2015 interview with The Guardian, Theron spoke about the incident, saying: “When I thought about the temperature out there — with finding out what Jennifer and Amy were being paid on a set with guy actors who are their counterparts... They’re just as good as any of the guys on there. Yeah, that [expletive] me off!”
In one swoop, Theron championed the cause for all her female peers in Hollywood.
Fate of the Furious (2017)
In a film franchise that has recently seen long-time member of the Furious family, Michelle Rodriguez, threatening to quit the Fast and Furious franchise in lieu of women being sidelined in the films, Theron swooped in to ride into the sunset with the lion’s share of the screen time.
While critics were sceptical how Theron could breathe life into a 16-year-old, testosterone-charged franchise that had Vin Diesel, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Jason Statham at its wheel, the actress accelerated her way to dominate this otherwise dreary script and became the most talked about member of the Furious family.
