This Role Offer Made Charlize Theron Furious at DC: 'Hollywood Slaps You in the Face'
A-listers like Charlize Theron are a welcome asset on any project, so the actress didn't expect to be humiliated when she was invited to join a new DC project…
Despite her long and rich acting career, by the time Charlize Theron got a call from DC, she'd never been a part of any superhero movie.
This made her reasonably excited: new types of projects often allow actors to develop and build upon their experience and talent, and the actress welcomed the invitation.
She was told that they'd be happy to have her play in Wonder Woman, and Charlize was happy to learn more.
The actress knew that superhero movies are a very different beast from what she was used to, and she asked the casting director to tell her more so that she could be ready to take on the role of Wonder Woman.
This is when the tables turned dramatically. The casting director realized that there'd been a miscommunication, and proceeded to explain to the actress that she was not invited to play Wonder Woman herself; she was instead supposed to act as the superhero's mother.
Theron's excitement was immediately replaced with pure fury.
At that point, Charlize Theron was just 41, and Gal Gadot who received the invitation to play Wonder Woman was 32.
Despite just a nine-year gap, Gadot was getting the lead role, and Theron only got to play her mother, Hippolyta. After the initial rage, Charlize realized something horrifying: it was not an intended insult at all.
It was a cruel and sudden revelation: for Hollywood, she was now an old actress.
"This is a great example of how Hollywood like slaps you in the face when you start aging. It was the defining moment when I crossed over and I wasn't fully aware of it," Charlize Theron admitted later.
Of course, back then, the actress rejected the offer: she was overwhelmed with negative emotions and totally not ready to cement herself as a "Mom-actress" in the public's eyes.
The role of Hippolyta then went to Connie Nielsen who was ten years older than Charlize (which also made more sense in terms of the age gap with Gal).
Apart from highlighting Hollywood's weird interpretation of women's age once again, this story only goes to show that context is king: later, Charlize Theron willingly went on to play a mother of three in her brilliant movie Tully and was happy with herself.
Source: USA Today