Charlize Theron Is Still Pushing Herself to the Limit
On The Odyssey, extreme stunts, and the one rule she lives by.
On what drew her to her character Calypso in The Odyssey and the parallels she sees in modern life: “Even though she’s a goddess, she is really longing for connection. And it was interesting to look at somebody with the powers that she has, but who still really couldn’t do that much with them. And not that I want to make a direct correlation to it, but there’s something to be said about women living their lives today in a powerful manner, and yet a lot of our rights are being taken away every single day.”
On filming for The Odyssey and the challenges of taking on iconic stories: Theron agrees that the conditions were beyond anything they anticipated. “I got there and I realized: To be the windsurfing capital of the world, you need a lot of wind,” she says. “That was brutal. But it was also incredible, because you felt like you were in the space where Calypso would have come from.” The result is a film that “feels big and original, dare I say, from a story that we feel like we all know.” The degree of difficulty when taking on the classics, she says, is the whole appeal. “They’re big stories to tell, and they’re intimidating. People will always attempt it because it is truly the Everest. You just want to try to climb it.”
On recognizing her privilege and supporting working women in the industry: “I feel like I’m in a place of incredible privilege,” she says. “Not that I didn’t work hard to get here—God, I broke my back to get here—but I realize that my story and my fight is so different from a lot of women who are amazing actors who work constantly but are not in a position to maybe say, ‘Listen, I want equal pay.’ Those actors have not been taken care of.”
On expanding her role behind the scenes with her production company, Secret Menu: Apex is one of about two dozen projects the actress and her partners, A. J. Dix and Beth Kono, lately joined by Dawn Olmstead, have developed through her production company. “I knew pretty early on that I didn’t want to just go and act and then go back to my trailer and wait for the next scene,” she says. “But I have felt, maybe more honestly, in the last year that there is an element that I can’t deny of wanting to have a certain amount of control over my work. For me, collaboration is one of the most important things about creating, but I like having a title, a job where I can step in and try to protect the thing that we originally set out to make. Sometimes that was hard for me earlier in my career.”
On her upcoming film Tyrant and speculation on her appearance in Avengers: Doomsday: With The Odyssey behind her, Theron’s focus is on the Amazon MGM Studios film Tyrant, set in New York’s high-end restaurant world. “I’m living at three-Michelin-star restaurants right now. This kind of research is easy,” says Theron, who will star with Julia Garner and produce alongside her partners. Despite her previous cameo as Clea Strange in the Marvel universe, Theron says she’s “not the person to ask” about speculation she’ll appear in Avengers: Doomsday. Nor does it seem Atomic Blonde 2 is moving forward: “I think we might’ve passed the moment.”
On motherhood and raising grounded daughters: It’s a compassionate view of the world she hopes to teach her two daughters, almost 11 and 14; she’s proud to see her elder daughter’s passion for volunteering at animal shelters. “They both have really big, good hearts. It’s not necessarily through my work, but I can tell that they’re thinking outside of their own bubble, and that to me feels good as a mom,” Theron says. Her girls keep her in line—“when I get too big for my britches, they surely let me know that I’m supposed to make lunch for them at 6:00 a.m.”—and in return, she tries to keep them grounded. “I tell them, ‘Just you be you.’ It’s so much harder for girls these days, I think, than when I was a teenager. When they get lost in it, I remind them they’re such powerhouses. They just need to remember that. Stay there. That’s probably the daily thing I remind them of—and to unload the dishwasher.”
On her foundation, Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, and the global humanitarian crisis: The charity’s work has been challenging under the second Trump administration, which has slashed, suspended, and reorganized US foreign aid programs. “These cuts have devastated countries and devastated lives, and killed a lot of people already and a lot of children. I don’t think people want to actually look at that,” Theron says. “At CTAOP, we’re just figuring out how we can get our funding. And on my end, having the stage that I have, I do feel like it’s not a responsibility. It’s just part of my humanity.”
Photographer: Norman Jean Roy
Stylist: Law Roach
Writer: Sara Austin
Hair: Adir Abergel
Makeup: Kate Lee
Manicure: Emi Kudo
[Photo Credit: Norman Jean Roy for ELLE Magazine]
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