CHARLIZE ON FIRE
She’s angel-faced villain in 2 new flicks
WITH AN Academy Award on display in her study and nearly 20 years in showbiz under her belt, Charlize Theron doesn’t usually get fazed easily.
But being decked out in a skin-tight spacesuit and running across volcanic ash near Iceland’s Mount Hekla — which scientists were monitoring for imminent eruption at the time — made filming “Prometheus” a new experience for the 36-year-old bombshell.
“I have never been a part of anything like this,” the actress told the Daily News. “It’s quite shocking, it’s very stark and graphic and there’s jagged edges everywhere. I know there was a volcano that was about to erupt. . . . I think we just had every ATV in Iceland standing by to roll us out of that crevice.”
In the past two weeks, the South African-born actress’ popularity has erupted to new heights — even by the standards of a beauty once named Esquire’s “Sexiest Woman Alive.”
In the span of one week, Theron has two blockbusters hitting theaters — “Snow White and the Huntsman” opened Friday and the sci-fi thriller “Prometheus” hits theaters in five days. In both, she plays de facto villains — the Evil Queen in “Snow White” and an icy corporate overseer in “Prometheus.”
“Yes, they do all of these bad things, so in classical terms, yeah, they’re probably the villains,” she says. “But as people, they feel real to me.”
In real life, Theron doesn’t have a villainous bone in her body, says “Prometheus” P th ” screenwriter it r Damon D Lindelof.
The two got to know each other while promoting the movie last summer at San Diego Comic Con, where Theron teased him publicly for writing a scene in which she had to do pushups wearing nothing but skimpy underwear.
“When I suddenly found myself getting my balls busted by Charlize Theron, it was the greatest experience of my life,” quips Lindelof.
The greatest experience in Theron’s life, she says, was the adoption of her son, Jackson, in March. And you won’t catch her complaining about being a single mom and juggling a full-time career .
“You just make it work, like any other single parent,” she says. “If anything, having a child has made me more creative.
“I’m super-excited to go to work. My job is just three weeks at a time of being on a set and then it’s calm again, so in many ways I have it better than people who have a 9-to-5 every day.”