The one major movie offer that was a “slap in the face” for Charlize Theron
For the most part, actors known as established action heroes aren’t necessarily viewed as the best actors in a traditional sense, but Charlize Theron is among the select few who’ve proven themselves more than capable of doing both.
Denzel Washington has mastered the art of balancing acclaimed dramatic performances with gun-toting genre films where he gets to gun down bad guys and snap a few necks, but Theron isn’t all that far behind, and it isn’t just because she also has an Academy Award win to her name after winning ‘Best Actress’ for her transformative turn in true-life serial killer drama Monster.
The decision to reject the roles laid out for her, and the path those roles would naturally lead the actor, is a big one. The journey along the Hollywood procession of leading ladies can be a fruitful one. But Theron saw a more interesting path forward. She saw the chance to really establish herself as a performer, reject the chance to be a beauty queen, and create a long-lasting career.
The Devil’s Advocate, The Cider House Rules, North Country, Bombshell, Young Adult, and Tully allowed Theron to display the range and versatility that’s kept her star shining brightly for over a quarter of a century, but she’s also developed a highly successful and lucrative sideline in kicking voluminous amounts of ass.
The bone-crunching Atomic Blonde and George Miller’s staggering Mad Max: Fury Road stand out as highlights, but Theron has held her own in the Fast & Furious franchise, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, Netflix’s comic book adaptation The Old Guard, and the remake of The Italian Job to name just a few, even if there’s no point in even trying to defend the risible Æon Flux.
And yet, when Warner Bros was on the hunt for a star that would be able to not only bring one of pop culture’s most iconic female characters to life for the very first time in a major blockbuster but also equip themselves in the action-heavy leading role as well, the Oscar winner suddenly discovered that she’d aged out of those parts overnight. Or at least, that’s how the studio was operating.
In December 2013, it was announced that Gal Gadot had signed a three-picture deal to play Wonder Woman in the DC Extended Universe after a lengthy casting process that had seen countless names linked with the role of Amazonian warrior Diana Prince. At the time of her hiring, the fellow Fast & Furious alumni was 28 years old, while Theron was ten years her senior.
A decade in most businesses is a small one. If anything, most industries would prefer Theron as the experienced head to lead a production like Wonder Woman, but Hollywood isn’t like any other business. We’ve all seen a teen comedy with an average cast age of 29, and sadly, the age paradigm reverses for women, meaning older roles are usually given to comparatively young performers. But for Theron and Gadot, ten years was apparently enough to be mother and daughter.
Hardly a massive discrepancy, then, but Theron was understandably shocked to discover that she was being considered for the part of Gadot’s mother. The actor was forced to clarify that she didn’t turn down the title hero of Wonder Woman but used her experience as “a great example of how Hollywood slaps you in the face when you start ageing.”
“So somebody had said to me, ‘Oh, there’s action on this thing, Wonder Woman, we just want to make you aware of it,’” she said on Watch What Happens. “And I was like, ‘I’m just not familiar with it. I mean, what does Wonder Woman do?’ And this person said, ‘No, it’s for Wonder Woman’s mom.’”
Theron named it “the defining moment where I just crossed over” into another age bracket despite the fact that she “wasn’t fully aware of it”. Marvel clearly didn’t have the same issues a decade later, though, after she was recruited to pop up in the credits scene of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as the sorcerer Clea.
Theron’s career has been far too impressive for this grievance to operate as anything other than a quick slap to the face. She has delivered in so many roles, across a broad spectrum of genres, that her chance to be Wonder Woman — especially given the movie’s reception — being taken away from her will likely be long lost in the memories of her successes.
