Super Woman

A profile I did on Charlize Theron. It's pretty basic but I think she's the bee's knees. And hey, at least it's a good picture.

Super Woman

With a film career succeeding the 10-year mark, Charlize Theron has attained a stature that far surpasses many actors of her age and experience. Intelligent, politically minded and refreshingly forthright, the softness of her cherubic, old-Hollywood looks are balanced with a directness that ensures she is a woman to be admired – and one certainly not to be fucked with.

Born to Gerda and Charles Theron in Benoni, South Africa, at 15, she witnessed the shooting death of her father by her mother in an act of self-defence. It is with that aforementioned directness, matched with a stoic sensibility, that saw Theron use this episode as a motivational tool rather than allow it to engulf her.

“I walked away from a hellish experience,” she says. “I realised I had two clear choices – either I drowned or I could swim. So I started swimming, very fast.”

And swim she did.

Winning a modelling competition the year after her father’s death, she travelled to Milan on a one-year contract, which eventually saw her in New York City. She decided to remain there and attend the Joffrey Ballet School, looking set to become a professional dancer until a knee injury brought the endeavour to a grinding halt. She then decided to try her luck in acting and bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles.

The rest is typical of your modern-day fairytale: down on her luck and arguing with a bank manager over a cheque on Hollywood Boulevard, an agent, mesmerised by her impromptu performance, approached Theron and asked if she would be interested in acting.

After losing her accent (she is fluent in Afrikaans and speaks some Xhosa, as well as 30 other African languages and dialects) she appeared in a handful of films before her breakout role in 1997’s, The Devil’s Advocate. This was followed by a string of movies that led her to the part that would cement her fate as a power-player in the industry – playing Aileen Wuornos in Monster. Scoring an Oscar for her portrayal of the troubled woman, Theron broke free of her looks (donning prosthetic teeth, greasy hair and gaining over 15 kilograms), proving that, more than just a beauty, she is an actor of substance.

The choice also carried socio-political associations for Theron.

“We went on a journey to find the greater truth of her story, which we always felt was misrepresented,” she says. “We never tried to justify why she did very horrendous things, we wanted to stay true to that. But also maybe lift the rug a little bit and show her actual situation.”

Some of these themes were extended when she took up the lead in North Country, playing protagonist, Josey Aimes. The film is based on Lois Jenson’s experiences at a mining company, where she was sexually harassed, leading to a class-action lawsuit against her employer for failing to protect her and other female employees – the first of its kind in the US.

She is also a friend of the gays. When asked why she and long-term partner, actor Stuart Townsend, hadn’t yet married, she replied: “We came up with a new idea. We said that we would get married the day that gays and lesbians can get married – when that right is given to them.”

Team that little chestnut with her acceptance speech when being honoured at the Gay And Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation awards for her work in increasing the visibility and understanding of the GLBTI community: “There’s one thing I’d like to say: as mothers, fathers, teach your children to have tolerance and acceptance. At the end of the day, we’re all the same.”

What’s not to love?