When Charlize Theron became an action hero, Hollywood was somewhat surprised by the direction the Oscar-winning career took. Many of her fans were not surprised, because, of course, why couldn’t an Oscar-winning actor become an action hero? She had appeared in Aeon Flux, Italian work and Hancock before but it was Mad Max: Fury Road That really put Theron on the action map.
San Diego Comic-Con @ Home honored Theron with a panel about his action film career. During the panel, Theron discussed how Mad Max: Fury Road left a permanent mark on his life.
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ had the most intense stunts Charlize Theron has ever done
Theron became a martial arts fighter for Atomic blonde and The old guardbut she says Mad Max: Fury Road It was the most difficult physical challenge. The reason was that other movies often help her with cable teams that share the heavy lifting. She was alone in Path of Fury.
Listen, I don’t think I’ll ever recover from making that movie. It was a tremendous feat what we did, all of us. It was very, very rare that [director] George [Miller] I wanted the team of specialists to trust too many cables. A lot of physical lifting in that movie was real. Holding your body in a car, getting out of a car, going to another vehicle, or action that was taking place while constantly driving vehicles was incredibly tedious. But, that was the challenge in that.
Charlize Theron, San Diego Comic-Con @ Starter Panel, 7/24/2020
Exhaustion worked for ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Riding apocalyptic cars at full speed wreaked havoc on Theron you can see in the movie. That is the point. Furiosa (Theron) is at the end of her rope when she takes the women out of the Immortan Joe Citadel (Hugh Keays-Bryne).
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“The story of Mad Max It’s supposed to make you feel incredibly exhausted, “said Theron. “You are supposed to be on a three-day car chase and that is exhausting. It was an exhausting shoot. Physically he took us all to a place where none of it was being made. It came from such a real place. “
It was worth it for Charlize Theron
Theron jokes that he is still recovering from Mad Max: Fury Road, but she would not change it. Five years have passed and we are still talking about Furiosa, and we will for some time.
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“I am incredibly proud of what we did,” said Theron. “I really am. I’m really proud of that character. Furious is definitely one of the most important characters I’ve ever played. I saw the potential, I knew how special he was from the beginning and I chased after him so hard for that. I saw something I had never seen before. before as an opportunity for me as an actor. “
The action hero who inspired Charlize Theron
Before women like Theron thrived in action movies, action heroines were fewer and fewer. Theron’s most influential was Sigourney Weaver as Alien survivor Ripley.
“The closest moment in my own life that I could look back on is the first time I saw Sigourney Weaver play Ripley,” said Theron. “It just changed everything for me. It was as if the world opened up and the possibilities were endless. The amount of intelligence she brought to that role, she was completely in demand of it. She owned that role but was not coerced, was not written, and did not act. She just lived. She only lived in that world in such an authentic way. “
Theron hopes Furiosa can be the Ripley of a new generation.
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“Furious was the first time I felt like I couldn’t even look at her as a character,” Theron continued. “She felt so real to me. And maybe it was because the filming was so hard, the fact that we were there for so long, that we really lived in that environment for so long that it made me feel that way about her. If that character can in a small way do what Ripley did for me as an actress, as a woman, that’s something I’m incredibly proud of. ”
