Screen beauty strikes gold by portraying ‘ugly’ characters
Throughout her high-flying acting career, Charlize Theron has enhanced her stellar clout and “K” with talent development moves that have expanded her effectiveness in performance.
She started out as an exceptionally lovely teenager who was also a gifted dancer and model, but quickly built on those clear advantages by also working hard to become a versatile actress.
By the late ’90s, she had already made her stellar mark by way of a number of box-office hits.
And, in 2000, she really hit her stride, starring in five films—“Reindeer Games,” “Men of Honor,” “Sweet November,” “The Yards” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance.”
But, Charlize wasn’t content just being Hollywood’s fave “beauty who could act,” and made it a point to audition for more challenging and offbeat roles, the “darker” and more complicated and even contradictory, the better.
Yes, she was a real beauty and deserved to be “adored” by the movie camera, but she didn’t have to remain at that all too obvious level, so she looked for “internally flawed,” less than perfect and downright “ugly” characters to portray.
In this career-transforming regard, Theron first came on strong in the 2003 film, “Monster,” turning in a shocking portrayal of a serial killer that critic Roger Ebert hailed as “one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema.”
Charlize Theron in the latest “Fast & Furious” film
Even the actress herself thought that was a bit too much, but Ebert’s effusive enthusiasm was affirmed by her being cited as best actress in three screen award derbies—the Oscars, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards!
Therein lies a lesson that needs to be learned by other ambitious stars and beauties who also want to be celebrated and awarded for their thespic talent:
Don’t keep playing romantic leads and screen heroes and heroines, look for the darker and more evil aspects of human nature to depict—because it’s in the shadows and stenches that screen characters are most compellingly and contradictorily human.
After unflinchingly and “awardedly” making her thespic mark, Theron also savored the adjunct advantage and benefit of seeing her talent fee jump to $10M per film, pushing her to the top level of most appreciated and rewarded female stars like Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore.
Small wonder, then, that Charlize has been named one of the most valuable stars in Hollywood. Not one to make all that praise and big bucks go to her head, however, she’s focused more on making sure that the challenging roles keep coming!
Her other screen salvos have significantly included other “dark” characters like the ravenous Queen Ravenna in “Snow White and the Huntsman,” and the current hit, “The Fate of the Furious,” which topped and broke international Easter weekend attendance records, grossing $529M.
Charlize is cited for her ability to “really pull off the sexy main villainess role as the Cipher very well,” so her latest starrer should further boost her stellar clout and cachet—to even greater heights.
She must be doing something oh, so right!
