Tag: charlize theron
And The Oscar For Most Stunning Actress Goes To …

And The Oscar For Most Stunning Actress Goes To …

We are here not to discuss the complex #OscarsSoWhite controversy but to address another sore point with perhaps similar origins: the #OscarsSoGorgeous phenomenon.

At the risk of running afoul of some ardent fan clubs, let us note that the Academy Awards for best actress tend to favor the young and beautiful, often for playing the down and out. Some older actresses survive the nominating process, but observe how many wouldn’t be there had they not established their careers on earlier goddess roles.

This helps explain why there are so few good parts for women who are dark and short — or, for that matter, white but less than spectacular. As with the lack of black nominees, the perpetual dearth of non-beautiful actresses surely reflects the socializing preferences of the white men in charge.

This is not to disparage Jennifer Lawrence’s acting talents, which many say are considerable. But it seemed odd that she was chosen to play the lead in “Joy,” a performance for which she has been nominated as best actress. “Joy” is based on the true story of Joy Mangano, a hard-luck working mother who found success inventing and selling homely mops.

Now the real Mangano is a fine-looking woman with strong Mediterranean features. But she was not born porcelain-skinned and blue-eyed. She did not pursue her dreams with a team of hair stylists maintaining the highest standards through her deepest indignities.

The Hollywood version lingers on endless close-ups of Lawrence’s mug — a picture of northern European perfection, currently a “face of Dior.” Of course, Lawrence has been on the cover of Vogue, which calls her “Hollywood’s blockbuster blonde.”

In 2006, Julia Roberts won best actress for “Erin Brockovich,” a real-life story about a blunt, working-class girl’s legal victory. Nothing wrong with the real Brockovich’s looks, but Erin was never the Roberts-level babe who could dominate the glossies from the lowliest fan mags to Vogue.

Roberts broke into stardom in “Pretty Woman,” playing a character who was supposed to be beautiful. Had Roberts not already achieved stardom as a dazzler, would she have been cast in the meaty role of a vulgar crusader?

The 2003 Oscar went to former model Charlize Theron for her role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in “Monster.” Fan magazines at the time marveled at how teams of makeup artists were able to turn a stunner into an ugly wretch.

You’d think that roles to play these tortured women would create opportunities for extraordinarily talented actresses of ordinary appearance, but that’s not how Hollywood usually works. Hollywood demands that female actors do double-duty as thespians and glamour queens.

On Oscars night we see how, when it comes to gender, Hollywood actors inhabit two entirely different planets. The men romp into the Dolby Theatre, while the women must run the gauntlet of red carpet humiliation. You see them freeze in cheesy poses, every detail of their facades followed by a week of microscopic critique.

At the ceremony itself, the male winners joyfully bound up the stairs to the stage. The female winners in spikes gingerly climb the stairs, no doubt terrified that a heel could lock into a long hem.

So this is a night to pity the bombshells as well as the great female actors who never had the chance to win the great parts. Why even bother with this dated vision when we can stream fascinating stories of three-dimensional women on our own screens day or night? And small wonder the Oscar audience numbers have been tanking.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com.

Photo: Jennifer Lawrence poses backstage with the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her role in “Joy” at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California January 10, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Charlize Theron Came To Love Silence Used In ‘Fury Road’

Charlize Theron Came To Love Silence Used In ‘Fury Road’

By Rick Bentley, The Fresno Bee (TNS)

LOS ANGELES — Charlize Theron spent six months in the blistering heat and chilling cold of Africa and Australia to film director George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. The first thing she says when she walks into the film stage on Sunset Boulevard for interviews for the new action film: “Is anyone else freezing?”

A quick change of the thermostat and a borrowed jacket makes Theron more comfortable while talking about her latest leap into the action genre. She had numerous stunts in Aeon Flux, but nothing compared to the wall-to-wall battles and chase scenes in Fury Road. There’s so much action, Theron found herself during the early part of filming asking Miller if she could have something to say. Slowly, she became more comfortable with his Spartan approach.

Theron gives Miller a lot of credit for building an emotional arc for the characters without using a lot of dialogue. It made her think about how much she had come to rely on the written word.

“As actors, we were fighting that tooth and nail,” Theron says. “It was out of fear because language is a crutch. Dialogue is a crutch. It’s so easy to have a great writer write you a line. George was just so adamant about keeping this film on track. The understanding (was) that this world is so bare and language would be a luxury that these people would not have access to.”

To help her tell that story, Theron’s character of Imperator Furiosa has a robotic left arm and a shaved head. Both helped transform the actress from her past films and TV commercials. Theron went back to her training as a dancer, where she had to tell a story with her body. It’s been years since she performed as a dancer, but it all came back as she talked to Miller about the dance world.

“Once you made peace with that, it actually became very liberating,” Theron says. “I thought what was really interesting about the names the characters have is that the movie is so bare in its explanation of where these people come from and who they really are. I thought there was something very powerful about the name (of her character) that really set you up. You didn’t have to know anything about her. The name alone said it. Anything emotionally driving her was already represented in her name. That was helpful.”

Her character is a strong-willed tanker truck driver who helps a group of young women escape from a tyrant. Theron sees the role as more of an anti-hero than hero because she is driven by human flaws.

It’s a character she loves

“I realized over the past couple of days, talking about this movie, how fortunate I was to have George trust me with this role,” Theron says. “You really are only as good as the opportunities that are handed to you.”

Theron particularly liked getting to play a strong character. And, she is not the only strong female in the movie. She often is surrounded by women who can shoot and drive with great skill. Theron calls working with so many strong women “a breath of fresh air.”

“I knew instantly from understanding the project that George had an innate understanding of what women represent to society and he wanted that to reflect in a post-apocalyptic world in the most truthful way possible. People keep saying ‘strong women’ but we are actually just women. We had a filmmaker that understood the truth of women is powerful enough and we don’t want to be put on pedestals or made to be unnaturally strong.

“What we are capable of doing is really interesting and informs a story like this.”

(c)2015 The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.