Charlize Theron gave a wide-ranging talk at Comic-Con on Saturday as a headliner of EW’s ‘Women Who Kick Ass’ panel.
The actress was at the venue as part of the promotion for her upcoming film ‘Atomic Blonde. Where she addressed the Hollywood pay gap, her own pet peeves about female action clichés and whether or not she’d be open to playing James Bond.
Atomic Blonde is the perfect movie for Charlize
‘Atomic Blonde’ is just the latest in a long line of titles to cast Theron in a ferocious role. Think Cipher in ‘The Fate of the Furious‘, Ravenna in ‘The Huntsman: Winter’s War’, and Furiosa in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’.
In ‘Atomic Blonde‘ Theron produces and stars as undercover MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton. An ass kicker of epic proportions sent to 1980s Berlin to recover essential information after another agent’s murder.
Co-starring James McAvoy and John Goodman, and directed by ‘John Wick’s David Leitch.
“Atomic Blonde” hits theaters on July 28 and is a project Theron has been developing for years.
Charlize was looking for an empowering role
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly’s Sara Vilkomerson, Theron said that she was waiting around for something very specific. But when that role wasn’t coming to her, she went out in search for it. She and her production team found an unpublished graphic novel that would become the film.
The audience in the convention center were then teased with a sneak peak of the film.Showing the South African actress being all kick-ass and fighting in a way that is only usually reserved for male actors.
“I wanted to make this movie and let it be as bad-ass as this and not have anybody come up to us and say, a girl can’t do that. That was important to me,” the actress said.
And just in case we weren’t sure she had a feminist message behind it all she adds: “I’m here to say, girls can do that.” On the panel, hosted by US magazine Entertainment Weekly, she also explained that she only throws one punch in the film and instead employs other tactics using her environment.
“That’s the reality, I can’t fight the same as a guy can fight but that doesn’t mean that I can fight any less or any less good than a man,” she said.
Redefining the female fighter
The Oscar winner was asked at the San Diego convention whether she would play 007 after her upcoming film, ‘Atomic Blonde’, which sees her portraying brawling British spy Lorraine. But the 41-year old told fans in the room that she is more than happy to leave the Bond franchise to its stars.
“I’m fine with leaving that over to Daniel or to Idris – who I think would be a fricken awesome Bond – and I’ll do Lorraine,” she said.
In fact, she wouldn’t need Bond as she is planning on making more than one ‘Atomic Blonde’ movie and she thinks her female alter-ego could rival 007. “I think of this character as something that could hopefully live and breathe in the same kind of format. We could actually make a couple more movies,” she said.
Theron likes Lorraine because she is a bit of an enigma and she took the chance to reflect on action films centered on female characters and its clichés. One of which is that the characters are always given a backstory or a justification for why they became warriors.
“We don’t need to lose a child or a husband or have some kind of revenge story to become a warrior,” Theron said. “(Lorraine) exists. She’s simply her. We don’t ever over-explain why she exists or why she’s any good at her job.”
Female empowerment
Charlize Theron has a message to audiences: See female-driven movies, and studios will make more. “I always say to studios, ‘Make more female-driven movies,’ ” Theron said. “They said, ‘We would if people go and see them.’ So go see those movies!”
Going along with the theme of female empowerment, Theron also celebrated director Patty Jenkins’ success with ‘Wonder Woman.’ Jenkins directed Theron in her Oscar-winning performance in ‘Monster’ 17 years ago.
“We need to have more women make these movies for sure,” Theron said. She hopes that ‘Wonder Woman’s’ success and that of ‘Atomic Blonde’ will help move the needle in getting more female-driven movies made and more movies from female directors.
The actress, who also executively produced Netflix’s ‘Girlboss’, also said she would reprise the role of Furiosa from ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ to find out her back-story. “I’ll be waiting for George (Miller, director) but I’m going to be 42 in August so let’s get to it,” she urges.
To finish up her empowering speech Charlize assured: “We’re just as good as the guys,” she said. “Plus we have boobs.”
Source: USA Today