Of all the films coming out this summer, I really want to see Atomic Blonde. It looks great, and after reading Charlize Theron’s Variety interview, I want to see it in theaters because I want to support her passion project. Charlize is leaning in to the fact that she’s one of the few women in Hollywood who can get cast in the lead of an action-drama. She spent a long time putting together Atomic Blonde, and nothing was handed to her – she had to fight to get the financing and support for this film, and hopefully it will be another Wonder Woman-esque tale of the box office reflecting a real desire to see women in these kinds of roles, kicking ass and taking names. You can read the full Variety piece here. Some highlights:

Her injuries on Atomic Blonde: She clenched down so hard on her jaw she cracked two teeth while getting in shape to throw burly men over her shoulders. “It happened the first month of training. I had severe tooth pain, which I never had in my entire life… Having to cut one of the teeth out and root canals. It was tough. You want to be in your best fighting shape, and it’s hard. I had the removal and I had to put a donor bone in there to heal until I came back, and then I had another surgery to put a metal screw in there.”

She’s been trying to become a female action hero for a while: “I got offered a lot of stuff in action movies that was either the girl behind the computer or the wife… When ‘Aeon Flux’ came to me, I thought that could be something. I was never completely sold on the entire concept, but I really loved [director] Karyn Kusama’s movie [‘Girlfight’]. So I threw myself into that with the belief that she’s a great filmmaker. And then we f—ed it all up. I just don’t think we really knew how to execute it. And it’s disappointing, but it happens. I’ve been in this business long enough to know that you cannot get it right every time. I might have gotten this right because of that.”

Her character in Atomic Blonde is a mystery: “You know nothing about this woman,” says Theron, who wanted to avoid contrivances like having her grieve for a dead husband. “It’s so rare that a female gets that in a movie. A lot of critics had issue with that — that’s such old-school thinking. You don’t need to be emotionally manipulated to feel something for someone.”

Her character gets sexually involved with a woman: “I just loved it. For so many reasons: My frustration of how that community is represented in cinema, or lack thereof. And also, it made perfect sense. It just suited her. It just felt there was a way through that relationship and the fact that it was a same-sex relationship to show a woman not having to fall in love, which is one of those female tropes. ‘It’s a woman; she better fall in love — otherwise, she’s a whore!’”

Hollywood has a caveman mentality: “I am ashamed that I’m part of an industry that has never allowed a woman to work with a budget higher than what the budget has been on ‘Wonder Woman.’ That’s so f—ing caveman-like. I am always hoping that this is the movie that’s going to change it and keep it for us.”

She did the Women’s March: “I went there because I’m a woman. I went there because I have kids,” she says, referring to her two children. A photo from the event went viral because it showed Theron in tears. “It’s so weird,” she says, explaining what happened. “I made eye contact with a man” — she starts to cry, thinking back to that day — “I think it just caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting to see a man so emotionally charged in that march. I just felt like he had kids, or maybe little girls. It touched me, as you can tell,” she says, wiping away the tears running down her cheeks.

Gaining weight again for her role in Tully: “It was brutal in every sense. This time around, I really felt it in my health. The sugar put me in a massive depression. I was sick. I couldn’t lose the weight. I called my doctor and I said, ‘I think I’m dying!’ And he’s like, ‘No, you’re 41. Calm down.’”

She was watching James Comey hearing during the interview. “This is a very big thing that’s happening in our country right now,” she says. “I’m concerned about all of that stuff.” Does she think she’ll see a female president in her lifetime? She sighs. “I mean, we would literally be the last country to come to that party,” Theron says. “That’s not even special anymore! Look at the world. The world is like, ‘You guys are seriously still having this conversation?’ ”

[From Variety]

She comes across really well throughout this piece. I often think that Charlize is the personification of Icy Bitch Realness, but I think her real personality is a combination of things. One, she probably is pretty icy to most people. Two, she’s focused on her own sh-t and she’s not here to be “liked” or the girl next door. Three, she actually is pretty badass in real life. I still want to know what went down between Charlize and Sean Penn that caused her to ghost him so hard.

Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Variety.