Charlize Theron searches for truth amid the ‘Fury’
Of the many explosive elements fueling Mad
Max: Fury Road, a passionate hookup is not one of them.
Road warrior Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) and aloof fighter Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) share the cabin of the War Rig as they hurtle through a wasteland to escape tyrant Immortan Joe and his War Boys. And that’s about it, in the nonexistent romance department.
“There was no room for that. The stakes were life or death,” Theron says over breakfast tea at the Baccarat Hotel as her bubbly son Jackson, 3, plays next to her.
“I love that there’s a mutual respect between them, but it’s really hard for them to communicate with each other. It’s almost very funny. ‘I don’t want to be in a car with you.’ How long is this drive going to be?”
Being stuck in the desert for seven months was appealing for a simple reason: “South Africans love Mad Max movies,” says Theron, who was born in Benoni and raised on a farm outside Johannesburg. “The idea of the reimagination of that world, I thought was cool. And the idea of doing it through a character that would stand alongside Max ...”
Credit director George Miller. And feminist author Eve Ensler, who was brought on as a consultant to avoid the hypersexualized, vacuous female stock characters populating action movies.
In this instance, Furiosa kidnaps Immortan Joe’s five wives and rescues them from enslavement and forced reproduction. In their first major onscreen moment, the comely ladies are clad in white scraps of fabric, drinking out of a hose. Imagine, for a second, if Michael Bay had directed that scene. Theron chuckles. “I’ve never been attracted to farfetched things. There has to be sense of reality for me to want to be in it. This world felt very real to me. This is happening today. Young girls are being sold off to warlords. They have children of rape. Yet it doesn’t hit you over the head when you watch the movie.”
The film was shot in 130 days, in Namibia, without a locked-in script. The action was real and authentic, Miller says, as was Theron’s craggy appearance. “She was the one who decided to shave her head. She’d have a little bag under her seat in the War Rig and do her own makeup.
“She is very, very disciplined and professional. She’s very resolute. If there was an apocalypse, I’d want her on my side.”
Neither she nor Miller know yet whether there will be a sequel. “I’ll see how this movie goes. It’s like asking a woman who’s given birth, ‘Do you want to make another baby?’ ” Miller jokes.
But all signs, and giddy reviews, point to yes. And no matter what, Theron doesn’t want this film to be the final word on women and movies.
“Really, what I set out to do was do something truthful,” she says. “If that’s an encouragement to women — just know your own truth.”
Perhaps the biggest compliment she has gotten, Theron says, was from her mother, Gerda.
“The first thing (my mom) said was, ‘This will be Jackson’s favorite movie.’ Which was really sweet,” Theron says. “Sean loved it. He was really blown away by how George handled the material.”
The Sean in question is Penn, Theron’s boyfriend. He’s with her as she makes the media rounds, and he walks red carpets with her, but the two keep things under the radar as much as possible.
“Everyone knows that both of us individually are not fans of that world, and we try to avoid that like the plague,” Theron says. “It’s not a real life. To each of his own. We live normal lives.”
She deflects personal questions with a joke — she’s direct, shrewd and spry with words — without being precious about it.
“There’s a difference between being open and being secretive. I don’t think I’m secretive. I talk about my son, about my life, in a casual manner.
“These headlines they grab at — it makes me want to talk less about it. (You) almost prefer talking to somebody for seven hours to those five-minute things, because that’s what happens. You become a headline.”