Special: Charlize Theron Interview

CHARLIZE THERON- INTERVIEW
“Hancock”
By: Scott Orlin

What was the initial attraction for you in the HANCOCK script?

THERON: It is very simple. It is something you read that just sticks with you. I will tell you this though about HANCOCK. I think Will Smith is going to break the conception about independent filmmaking and the big blockbuster world with this movie. People are so quick to categorize that the better acting is in the independent world and that the big blockbusters are all about action and effects and are mainly fluff. Those are how you pay your bills. An actor is only doing the big films for the paychecks. Will is going to change that misconception single-handedly because the material he is tackling is definitely not compartmentalized from independent filmmaking. He works with really talented people and so that is what struck me about this one. I knew it would be him and would be a bigger film but at the same time it was this beautiful complex piece. I like the conflict that the characters found themselves in and that is what drew me. It was the same when I did MONTSER. There was just something really interesting about this story.

As an actor, does each project have to offer you something unique and different?

THERON: If I am being honest, it is all about story to me. I am a storyteller and I want to tell good stories. My job as an actor is to serve those stories. The stories that you want to go and tell will lend themselves to you where you will find a stage to do that. But good stories go hand and hand with good characters. You can’t have a good story without having good characters.

Hancock is this super hero who makes mistakes and yet we live in a world where we don’t want our heroes to make mistakes. What kind of commentary do you feel the film raises on this issue?

THERON: We do sort of thrive on that, don’t we? We see how many magazines thrive on mistakes and it has almost become the ‘in’ thing. I am not sure what that says about our society. We like to see these famous people wearing no underwear, getting DUI’s and getting arrested. I don’t know. I like the idea of taking a quintessential hero, one we know so well which is the superhero in a genre which is somewhat predictable, and put that hero in more humane conditions. The human condition is flawed but we don’t think that way with super heroes. Here is this guy who has been doing this a long time. He is somewhat tired of the routine and so he drinks and likes to grab young girl’s asses. All of that was a wow to me.

You play Jason Bateman’s wife. In many a film, that might be a part relegated to be the damsel in distress, the funny sidekick or the pretty adornment. What did you see in her to make her more pertinent to the story? Did you need to spark her with attitude?

THERON: It is all story. People try and complicate it but you have to have a story. There is a real well developed story here and the story lent itself to human condition. Anyone who so consciously decides that they are going to make this very specific life for herself usually has a dark secret they are hiding. That is Mary. She makes this conscious decision to live in suburbia and be this soccer mom to her stepson and be the perfect wife. She lives in this bubble and everything in that bubble is very sacred to her. She is adamant in protecting that. People who tend to do that, which usually means that the character is hiding some characteristic inside themselves that scares them. That is Mary’s case. She knows herself and what she is capable of and who she is. I find that very complex when you get to play women who are that. We want to believe that women who are married and have kids don’t have this fear deep down inside that there is a part of themselves that is probably not as content as they think they are. It is proven here when Hancock shows up in her life. Everything that she has always feared in her life – she has this immense chemistry with this guy – totally throws her life upside down.

How would you describe the relationship with Hancock? She doesn’t want her husband helping this man.

THERON: Of course. It is the fear of which she knows. It is the fear of her own behavior within herself that she knows that she cannot be around this guy. There is this instant attraction. There is this instant chemistry. If he is around, she will have to give in to her attraction and she doesn’t want to give in to her feelings because it will break up the perfect family that she has been creating.

As this film was shooting, people were talking about the possibility of an inter-racial relationship.

THERON: They were? That is so sad. We really do live in cave men times. I don’t know what world we live in anymore because that is not the world I want to live in. I have always been open about the limits in which we have in our society. Why is gay marriage illegal? It all boils down to love. How do we dictate what kind of love is valid? Does it matter if it is between a man and a man or a man and a woman or a black man and white woman? Does that make it less valid?

Doesn’t the film tap into in some strange way how society needs to separate people because they are different? This guy is a super hero and so he has to be treated differently but it could just as easily be anyone who is distinctive and how they are treated.

THERON: It does very, very much so relate to that. The idea of the super hero made to feel like he is different is something that I think many people can relate to. To be honest, each one of us in some small way is different. It then becomes how people judge those differences and it is not easy to live in a world where you are made to feel different.

Have you ever been made to feel different?

THERON: I think everyone thinks they are different. It doesn’t matter what your background is. Life is hard. Life isn’t always easy and living a true life, which can be hard, you do get thrown into situations where you don’t feel like you are part of the great mass. There is something that will always be different and people can relate to that. I am so upset that people would even worry about that type of relationship.

Let’s get shallow for a second and a little light hearted then. You are a very beautiful woman and yet for some of your more recent projects, you have deglamorized yourself to be swallowed up in the role. Mary allows you to showcase the outer beauty.

THERON: There is a lot of fantasy in this movie. There is a lot of mystery and fantasy. All is not what it seems and people know that. You can’t say on one hand that this is a complex movie and then say it is only material about a super hero that comes into a family’s life and throws it upside down. It is really complex and so it lends itself for me as an actor to do some great things. As an actor, you are supposed to dive into an emotional and physical world.

So what do you think was good for you as an actress to dive into?

THERON: I would like to think that should be left for an audience to decide but I liked the fact that this woman, and I have made a career out of playing flawed woman, but Mary is flawed. There is a different tone and wit about her so it was taking a different character and throwing her into that world. There was a different language for this story. I got to do some crazy stuff in this movie.

You are no stranger to action having done AEON FLUX but how much physically was required of you?

THERON: We did everything. There were days when I remember turning to Will and saying, “What?” That is what was so great about the film because any of us didn’t really know what we were getting into it. I take my hat off to Pete Berg who did a great job because he was brave enough to make this unusual and dared to be original. There were days when he told me how he liked to work and I thought he was crazy. But it works and I take my hat off. He saw through and his voice is very much heard. You can see that this is a Pete Berg film. We did crazy things.

Can you recall how that eclectic range of requirements played out?

THERON: We did everything from wire work one day to a four page monologue the next that would break your heart. Then the next day we did this Lucille Ball – Desi Arnaz type of slapstick. It was crazy and funny. Each day was so different and we never knew each day what type of movie we were making.

Was that disconcerting at any time to not know the style of film Pete had a vision for?

THERON: A lot of it had to do with the amount of time we had in rehearsal. We had three weeks of intense rehearsal. It was a great schedule that Will and I really liked. We would meet and sit from 9 in the morning till sometimes 8 at night every day for three weeks. We talked about the material and went through the rewriting process. We talked about every detail of what we were trying to do. And say. That was the foundation for us being able to explore as many possibilities as we could. We discussed every which way we could go but we always had a focus.

Historically the great comic book heroes are all flawed and have these relatable human frailties. Even though they have some special powers, which we do not share, they have fears and insecurities just like the rest of us. How much do we see that spectrum with Hancock?

THERON: We have taken that to the extreme. We have never seen a super hero live a life that is so uncomfortable to watch. It is so conflicted to watch him in the first act because he is not a nice guy. He is not a super hero that is just tired of saving people. He has no social skills and drunk all the time. You cannot have a normal conversation with him. It leads to great humor but allows a real truth to come out that we see in the second and third act. It makes a real human story. At the end of the day, we are all the same. We all hurt the same. It is so beautiful.

What is the balance then between him and Mary?

THERON: All I can say is that there is chemistry between the two, which I have never played in film before. It is mad chemistry but given the fact that one of us is a super hero that could be one of the plausible reasons why. That was very interesting to me. That connection and not being able to deny that connection was really interesting for me to play.

What was your relationship to comic books and super heroes growing up?

THERON: I was not one of those people. For me, not really being from that world, I was not one of those people to go be the first to stand in line for BATMAN or SUPERMAN. So for me to be interested in this material really says a lot. There is a real human condition in this story that really attracted to me.

In the film, when this super hero goes to do good, he disrupts the local community and does damage. Art imitating life, as you were shooting this film, you closed down many major LA streets and intersections to illustrate that point. How noticeable did you feel the location filming had to be?

THERON: I lived two minutes from one of the locations we used in Hollywood for over a week. I have done that on two other films and it is never fun because your friends end up being the ones who are most annoyed because they know it is your film. You come home to about twenty messages of them bitching because they couldn’t get home. But the crowds were amazing. We live in a town where films get made and the crowds just loved it. Here we were on Hollywood Boulevard and the crowds loved it. Will Smith was there, joking around and high-fiving people. He was throwing trucks around on set and so if you were a tourist there that week, you really lucked out.

Let’s talk a little about Will Smith. What does he provide you as an actor on set?

THERON: This is the second time we worked together. We were both in THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE maybe eight or nine years ago. We really hit it off. Along with Matt Damon, we all hit it off and had a great time making the film. I didn’t get to work with Will that much on that film but we goofed around a lot on set. I knew I really liked this guy so I knew that there was so much more room for us to explore as actors. When I read this, I knew he was involved. The material was good but a huge part was knowing that he was involved. I wanted to tap more in to the working relationship. He is a rare breed. He is a phenomenal actor. He is incredibly smart and he gets it and he is inspiring for me to be around.. He works from a raw place. What makes me fall madly in love with him is his willingness to go anywhere he needs to go to get what is needed. He could so easily just lean back but he shows up and works incredibly hard. We have a very interesting relationship. I can really push his buttons and he can really push mine. From what I hear, he has never had that relationship before and so it really worked. He was not going to push me around and I wouldn’t push him around. There was this challenge on how we could really push each other and poor Jason was the great middleman.

You talked before about Will lifting a truck. How much were you on set during those big action sequences? Were you impressed with the new level of technology that enables scenes like this to even take place?

THERON: I saw a lot of it and it was fascinating. A lot of this new technology wasn’t even there when I did AEON FLUX.

Does it take away some of the movie magic for you when you can witness Will lifting a truck but actually seeing the wires and such?

THERON: Not really. Anything that can enhance storytelling, I am for. If you can use this to add to this beautiful human story, that is very relatable, then I say why not. If you can push the imagination, then I am all for that. I am all for where technology can go and how it can serve the story. It is all fascinating to me.

We live in a social and political climate where audiences need movies to escape. What can they expect from HANCOCK?

THRON: I think this will be the craziest ride an audience has ever had. I have never said this about any film I have made but this is really original. We took a genre that audiences are quite familiar with and did something very unique.

Is that tough to do in this day and age?

THERON: Oh my God! I have been in this business for fourteen years and I walked out of the theater after I saw a screening and told my manager that this was so original. I do not throw that word around. I just don’t because it is not bad but it should only be said when it is valid. You can do great work without being totally original. You can take classic stories and circumstances and tell a good story but I have never seen anything like this. It just felt totally original to me.

Do you hope audiences walk out of this movie with something special?

THERON: It is not as simple as just one thing. I am curious about which thing an audience will walk out with. One of the great things about film is that it is a wonderful medium to communicate. I have walked out of a movie with eight friends and we each carry something different with us. That’s what I love about the power of film. I hate to project what people will take out of the film but I would love to listen when they do.