Charlize Theron has revealed why her “psychopathic” Fast & Furious character is important.
A Powerful Antagonist
The Oscar winner, 45, is reprising her role as Cipher in the latest installment of Fast & Furious saga, F9
“This franchise allowed for me to come in and push beyond boundaries,” she explained at the movie’s premiere on Friday, June 18. “Playing a character like Cipher, it allows for you to really go wild with it.”
She went on to say F9 “allowed for me to be as crazy and as psychopathic as possible,” noting, “Usually people don’t allow me to do that. I have to fight for that. But they were like, ‘Yes! Just the more crazy you can be, fantastic!'”
But the mother of two said she feels like there’s a “revelation” in Hollywood when it comes to “complicated women and female characters” taking center stage in newer action films—even if they’re “hard and abrasive” leading ladies.
“I feel like that’s come alive during my career. I feel like in the last 10 years, we [have become] fascinated by women being complicated,” she reflected. “So I feel lucky that I’m part of this change… because it wasn’t that way when I started.”
“Every character I played had to be likable or you can’t go too far, and we don’t have those conversations anymore, but the thing that we need to work on is we need to have more availability for more women to take on those roles.”
Not Enough Action
Theron also added:
“For me, it’s reminiscent of my dance career and just telling a narrative through physicality, which is what I fell in love with with dance. I didn’t really know that till I couldn’t dance anymore… I think through action movies, I get to do that physical narrative you don’t necessarily get to do with drama… I wish I could have done it a little earlier in my career — starting out at 40 is hard… It’s challenging, and I like that.”
Fast & Furious isn’t the only time that she has been able to show her action star skills. Her previous film, The Old Guard, dropped on Netflix last July, and it also put her stunting abilities on full display.
F9, the summer’s biggest blockbuster, hits theaters on June 25.
