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| Charlize Theron Biography |
Early life
Theron was born in Benoni, in the then Transvaal Province of South Africa, the only child of Gerda Jacoba Aletta Maritz (who has also called herself Gerta) and Charles Jacobus Theron (born 27 November 1947). Her mother is of German descent and her father was of Occitan (French) and Dutch ancestry; Theron is descended from early Huguenot settlers, and Boer War figure Danie Theron was her great-great uncle. "Theron" is an Occitan surname (originally spelled Théron) pronounced in Afrikaans as [tron], although she has said that the way she pronounces it in South Africa is [?ron]. She changed the pronunciation when she moved to the U.S. to give it a more "American" sound.
She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. Her father died on 21 June 1991, after he was shot by Theron's mother. Theron's father, an alcoholic, physically attacked her mother and threatened both women while drunk. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defence and her mother faced no charges.
Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein), a period she later characterised as not "fitting in". At 13, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg. Although Theron became fluent in English (which she speaks with a General American accent) around age nineteen, her first language is Afrikaans.
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| Charlize Theron Biography |
Career
Though seeing herself as a dancer, Theron at 16 won a one-year modeling contract at a local competition, and with her mother moved to Milan, Italy. After Theron spent a year modeling throughout Europe, she and her mother moved to New York City and Miami, Florida. In New York, she attended the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer until a knee injury closed this career path at 19. As Theron recalled in 2008,
I went to New York for three days to model, and then I spent a winter in New York in a friend's windowless basement apartment. I was broke, I was taking class at the Joffrey Ballet, and my knees gave out. I realized I couldn’t dance anymore, and I went into a major depression. My mom came over from South Africa and said, "Either you figure out what to do next or you come home, because you can sulk in South Africa."
Intending now to work in movies, Theron flew to Los Angeles, California, on a one-way ticket her mother bought her. During her early months there, she went to a Hollywood Boulevard bank to cash a cheque her mother had sent her to help with the rent. When the teller refused to cash it, Theron engaged in a shouting match with her. Upon seeing this, talent agent John Crosby, in line behind her, handed her his business card and subsequently introduced her to casting agents and also an acting school. She later fired him as her manager after he kept sending her scripts for films similar to Showgirls and Species. After several months in the city, she was cast in her first film part, a non-speaking role in the direct-to-video film Children of the Corn III (1995). Her first speaking role was a supporting but significant part in 2 Days in the Valley. Larger roles in widely released Hollywood films followed, and her career expanded in the late 1990s with box-office successes like The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999). She was on the cover of the January 1999 issue of Vanity Fair as the "White Hot Venus". AskMen named her the number one most desirable woman of 2003.
After appearing in other films, Theron starred as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003). Film critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema". For this role, Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, as well as the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award. She is the first South African to win an Oscar for Best Actress. The Oscar win pushed her to The Hollywood Reporter's 2006 list of highest-paid actresses in Hollywood; earning US$10 million for both her subsequent films, North Country and Æon Flux, she ranked seventh, behind Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Renée Zellweger, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman.
In 2005 Theron portrayed Rita, Michael Bluth's (Jason Bateman) love interest, on the third season of Fox's critically acclaimed television series Arrested Development. She also received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her role of Britt Ekland in the 2004 HBO film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. On 30 September, Theron received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the same year, she starred in the financially unsuccessful science fiction thriller Æon Flux. She also received the 2005 Spike Video Game Award for Best Performance by a Human Female for her voiceover work in the Æon Flux video game.
Theron received Best Actress Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her lead performance in the drama North Country. Ms. magazine also honoured her for this performance with a feature article in its Fall 2005 issue. She was supposed to star in the screen adaption of the short story The Ice at the Bottom of the World by Mark Richard, and it was to be directed by Kimberly Peirce and produced by Theron's company Denver and Delilah Films (Theron's two dog's names). Theron has owned the rights for many years. She was also supposed to star in a movie adaption of the graphic novel Jinx, but both projects have not been produced as of yet.
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| Charlize Theron Biography |
In 2008, Theron was named the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year. That year she also starred with Will Smith in the superhero film Hancock, and in late 2008 she was asked to be a UN Messenger of Peace by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.
In October 2009, Theron was cast to star in a sequel to the Mad Max films, titled Mad Max: Fury Road.
On 4 December 2009, Theron co-presented the draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, accompanied by several other celebrities of South African origin. During rehearsals she drew an Ireland ball instead of France as a joke at the expense of FIFA, referring to Thierry Henry's handball controversy in the play off match between France and Ireland. The stunt alarmed FIFA enough for it to fear she might do it again in front of a live global audience.
Following a three-year hiatus from the big screen, Theron returned to the spotlight in 2011 with Young Adult. Directed by Jason Reitman, the film earned critical acclaim especially for Theron's performance. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and several other high profile awards.
Theron plays the Wicked Queen in the film Snow White & the Huntsman, in production in 2011.
In 2011, she described her process for becoming the characters in her film:
When I'm figuring out a character, for me it's easy, since once I say yes to something, I become super-obsessed about it – and I have an obsessive nature in general. How I want to play it starts at that moment. It's a very lonely, internal experience. I think about [the character] all the time – I observe things, I see things and file things [in my head], everything geared to what I'm going to do. I'm obsessed with the human condition. You read the script and become obsessed with [a character's] nature, her habits. When the camera rolls, it's time to do my job, to do the honest truth. You can't do that part of the [character-creation] work when you're in the middle of making the film. At least I can't.
Original Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlize_theron
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