Name: Charlize Theron
Birthdate: August 7, 1975
Birthplace: Benoni, Transvaal Province, South Africa
Claim to fame: She came to fame in the late 90’s with movies such as The Devil’s Advocate, Mighty Joe Young, and The Cider House Rules. However, it wasn’t until she played serial killer Aileen Wuornos and won the Oscar for Best Actress for 2003’s Monster that she became one of the top actresses in Hollywood.
What we can see her in next: She stars opposite Tom Hardy in the highly anticipated film, Mad Max: Fury Road.
Interesting fact: Talent agent John Crosby discovered Theron after he witnessed her engage in a yelling match with a bank teller because he wouldn’t cash her cheque. Crosby was standing behind her in line and handed her his business card after their argument, subsequently introducing her to casting directors and to an acting school.
Best quotes:
“I think of myself as a highly sexual creature.”
I have OCD, which is not fun. I have to be incredibly tidy and organized or it messes with my mind and switches off on me.”
“If I don’t like seeing myself on the screen, I think when I start seeing that, that’s when I think I’ll stop.”
Why we love her: I remember everybody fawning over Charlize Theron in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. There were movies like Reindeer Games, The Cider House Rules, Mighty Joe Young, and Sweet November, which had catapulted her status as one of the hottest sex symbols and most promising young actresses in Hollywood. There was even that May 1999 issue of Playboy magazine that featured Theron on the cover. What was there not to love? She was that gorgeous, tall, blonde, actress from South Africa that was on her way to becoming one of the best.
Theron then did something drastic to disengage from her typecast as a sex symbol and romantic lead, she stripped down (the makeup) and played serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster to prove her credibility as a performer and show she can do a lot more than just the “pretty thing”. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, as well as the Oscar for Best Actress. Film critic Robert Ebert even heralded Theron’s performance saying, “It could be one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema.” Get rid of her typecast? Well she was definitely successful in doing that. Two years later she was then nominated for an Oscar for the second time for her work in the film North Country to prove Monster was no fluke. It seemed at the time she was poised to become one of the biggest actresses on the planet, but instead, she focused on less glamorous roles in the film industry such as producing. She even took a three-year hiatus from acting altogether between 2008-2011. This led to her momentarily disappearing from the spotlight, until now…
But I think it just speaks volumes of Theron’s true talent and likeability as an actress that she’s now clawing her way back into the limelight with a bunch of big movies and starring roles in the pipeline. There was her role in Seth McFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West, and now her most recent starring role opposite Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road, which releases in theatres everywhere on May 15. She also stars in the latest Gillian Flynn novel screen-adaptation, Dark Places, which will release later on this summer.
Lets not forget, her native language is Afrikaans and she’s dating the one and only Sean Penn. Can we attribute this career resurrection to Mr. Penn himself? Well I wouldn’t go that far, but it definitely doesn’t hurt. Not only is Theron talented and now an “it” woman, but she sure seems like a pretty cool chick as well.
You can catch Mad Max: Fury Road, in theatres everywhere May 15.
