[Julie*]

Here's my translation of the Italian Vanity Fair.
I'm sorry if it's not top notch, I've translated very quickly!

Sucks for you, snow white
In movie theaters she’ll be the evil queen, “one that her whole life has said to herself: you have to be young and beautiful”. But during the years she has spend she has created very clear ideas on this subject. And a dream that has to do with her mother

Unfortunately Charlize Theron is at the other end of the telephone. Now there’s no way of knowing if her eyes are as severe as the tone of her voice. Her words fall as sharp as her strides in the new Dior j’adore commercial, in which she splits the ‘catwalk’ in two, after having shared the dressing room with Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich and Marylin Monroe. It may very well only be a commercial, only some digital images, but who can say they’ve shared the stage with such moviestars like those three? I ask if she feels in any way closer to one of the three. “I’m inclined to say no”. She responds, “But Ithink I have something in common with each one of them, and I think every woman can say the same. We can all see ourselves in these ‘characters’, recognize aspects that belong to us: Marlene’s strength, Marylin’s vulnerability, Grace’s elegance.” And even if times have changed and most likely no one could ever achieve the same iconic status and career length, at 36 years, Charlize Theron has won fame and celebrity as beautiful and solid as those. After having won an Oscar for best actrice in the movie Monster in 2003 (the first South-African woman to ever win this award), she has put together a filmography with a handful of diverse movies, from surrealism in the movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, to science-fiction with Aeon Flux, with more ‘substantial’ movies like The Burning Plain and The Road. Today, after a break of several years, Charlize Theron is set to return to the cinemas with Young Adult, a movie directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, with her role of Mavis Gary: “The girl you hated in high school” the trailer announces. In other words, a real bitch. Thus, a role every actress would kill to have. In the meantime she’s finishing up shooting for Snow White And The Huntsman, one of the two versions of the fairytale set to appear in 2012. She’ll be the evil queen. The one in the other movie will be played by Julia Roberts.

What effect does it have on you to think that one day, when you won’t be alive anymore, you could end up in a tv-commercial?
“When you enter this world of showbizz, you know that your image becomes public property, it’s something you have to take into account. AND if there’s a harmony between the life you’ve led and the image that’s been used of you, I don’t see what kind of problem there could be. So I would say, it depends. It depends what kind of commercial.”
What product could you never associate yourself with, not even dead?
“My god, you’re morbid. I don’t know. I don’t spend my time thinking about death, I prefer to concentrate on my life and live it in the best way possible. How can you be interested in something that’ll happen when you’re not alive anymore?”
In the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you play the role of the evil queen, which we all know is obsessed with the idea that there could be someone better looking than her out there. Personally, do you think you’re ready to one day face the fact you could not be the most attractive woman in the room?
“Of course I’m prepared. We all grow old and die. Those are the only securities we have in life. And one day or another Dior will find someone to replace me with. But I’m only 36 years old, as a woman, I feel like I’ve only just reached the top. As for Snow White, if anything, the point is the importance that society attaches to youth and beauty. “
Really?
“Her whole life the queen has said to herself: “you have to be young and beautiful”. She knows her value lie in those, and from there on out her obsession grows. Women’s power has always been based on their physical aspect and age, that’s how it used to be and still is today. There’s no equality when it comes to aging. Men are like a fine wine: the older the better. While women are like cut flowers: they wither and die.”
And you don’t worry?
“Thank God I have a very good example right in front of me: my mom. She’s a beautiful woman that has aged in a totally natural way, no plastic surgery or nips and tucks. Every time I look at her I think to myself: “I hope one day to become like her”. Is it really that important to enter in a room and feel the most beautiful one? I’ve never felt that way about myself, because I’ve never been brought up with such morals, fortunately. My value doesn’t lie in my looks, but within me, in what I’m able to do and bring to the tabble, my professionalism, the types of results I want to achieve and the type of actress I want to become. I can’t be bothered with the idea that I could lose something that’s not even interesting to me in the first place.”
But for all the other ones? Is there something we can do, so that not only men but women as well can be considered as a fine wine?
“The only way, probably, is the way we raise our sons, and more importantly, our daughters. If your parents doubt your value as a person and your only reference is society, well, you’re screwed, because the world tends to be cruel.”
Are you still busy with the idea of having children, a family?
“I’ve said this for many years, and it’s something I’ve never hidden in interviews, but I find it strange that I’m more frequently being asked this question. People probably think time is passing and I have to hurry, but I still feel the same and I am in no hurry. I don’t have a certain goal: I’m single, and I’m only looking to live a good life for the moment being.”
The way you’ve always said you’d like to have kids, you’ve always said you’re not very interested in marriage. Could this mean you could become a single mother?
“That’s a very personal question. I can tell you that in general it’s pretty naive that there’s such a thing as a perfect family with a man and a woman. Wether you like it or not, things aren’t like this. I know many gay couples that are raising intelligent and happy children. Moreover, nowadays there are more children with a single parent than those with two parents because even in married couples it’s rare that mom and dad are involved in the care of their child in an equal way.”

[kobro22]

Julie thank you so much for the translation!

[Kate_Moore]

^+1 for the translation, such a subte-sexy spread.

[saann]

Gorgeous! I don't like the shoes but I love her cardigan and bag. I wonder what she picked up..

Charlize Theron Stops By Vera Wang Store in Hollywood, Oct 24





eyeprime.net

[mordant]

Love the shoes and cardigan. Seriously, can she do no wrong?

[dennab216]

She looks fabulous, fit, happy and with normal blond hair, plus this length is perfect for her I love the outfit as always, simple but very flattering with a perfect combo of colours She can do no wrong when it comes to personal style ^^
Posted via Mobile Device

[lvstratus]

She can't do wrong. she knows what suits her and she usually looks damn fine!

[kobro22]

Wow she looks amazing, love the skinny black jeans so much! She is such an inspiration.

[Kate_Moore]

Love the cardigan, this kind of simple looks just suit her soooo good.

[dennab216]

Strong Enough to Play the Heavy
By CHARLES McGRATH

Quote:

THERE may be women in Hollywood more beautiful than Charlize Theron, though it’s hard offhand to think who might qualify, and even harder to think of one who relies less on her looks. Ms. Theron, whose new film, “Young Adult,” directed by Jason Reitman, opens on Dec. 9, is a genuine star — with an almost Marilyn-like glamour — and yet she goes about her work as if she were a character actress. From one movie to the next she seldom looks the same, and not just in the ones where she has obviously transformed herself. To play the serial killer Aileen Wuornos in “Monster” (2003), for example, she put on 40 pounds, shaved her eyebrows and wore prosthetic teeth. A better example is the 2007 film “In the Valley of Elah,” in which she portrays a no-nonsense police detective. Her hair is brown (Ms. Theron’s natural color, as it happens, not the blinding platinum that has become her trademark) and pulled back, she wears little or no makeup, and it’s a minute or two before you realize, Oh, that’s her. In “Young Adult” Ms. Theron is Mavis Gary , one of the more unlikable protagonists to come along in years. The movie isn’t “Monster,” exactly, but the character is monstrous in her way and in some respects even less sympathetic than Wuornos. She’s a divorced, semisuccessful writer of young-adult novels who on learning that her old high school boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) and his wife have just had a baby, decides to move back to her small Minnesota hometown, break up the marriage and win him back. The character is beautiful and knows it, but in the course of the movie her looks become just another emblem of her shallowness and self-regard. The script is by Diablo Cody (winner of an Oscar for “Juno”), who said recently that in the current climate she was a little surprised that the movie got made almost exactly as she wrote it, without a redemptive Hollywood touch-up for Mavis. “I just don’t feel people change much,” she said. “I guess I want to believe that a lot of people have a Mavis-esque side. I do. I think about experiences I’ve had or things I’ve lost, and I still feel bitter.” Over tea at a TriBeCa hotel last month Ms. Theron asked herself: “Am I crazy for making this movie? I’m not saying I didn’t think this was risky material, but I’m very grateful for the opportunity.” What most drew her to the project, she added, was the chance to work with Mr. Reitman. “I’m very director driven,” she said. “I’ve been in the business for 17 years, and in that time you get to know what you bring to the table. I’m at a point now where I don’t want to bring just that. I want to work with someone who can take me to a level I can’t get to by myself, and I don’t think you get that with just any director. Jason is one of the handful of amazing, talented people out there who can make you do things you can’t do yourself.” The exact nature of the Reitman-Theron collaboration is a little mysterious. He hates rehearsals even more than she does, and most scenes in the movie were shot in just one or two takes. All he did by way of preparing Ms. Theron for the part, Mr. Reitman recalled, was send her the first seasons of “The Hills,” “My Super Sweet 16” and “Laguna Beach,” all MTV reality series, on DVD. “It was a joy,” he said of making the film. “I know every director says that, but it’s really true. It’s a wonderful thing when an actor and a director are making exactly the same film. She and I were so united in our vision of Mavis Gary that it really was joyful.” Near the end of “Young Adult” there’s a scene in which an inebriated Mavis melts down at a party in a fashion that’s almost too embarrassing to watch. “It’s a great lesson in acting,” Mr. Reitman said of Ms. Theron’s performance. “It’s not a pick-up. A hand-held camera follows from inside the house to the outside. It’s five straight minutes of acting, and everyone in the crew was just sitting there with their hands over their face. I’ve only felt that a few times in my career — when George talks to Vera in ‘Up in the Air,’ when Juno gives birth to the child. You feel that you’re not making a movie anymore. You’re already in the audience, watching.” A word that keeps coming up when people talk about Ms. Theron is “strong.” “She’s so steady, so strong,” Mr. Reitman said. “The first time I met her, I was scared, to be honest.” Patti Jenkins, who directed “Monster,” said: “I could see right through that beauty, and I knew she was strong. I sensed a very powerful woman.” Off screen Ms. Theron, who is 36, is straightforward, often earthy in her choice of vocabulary, but scarcely grand or formidable. “I don’t really understand celebrity,” she said. “If I have to speak in public, I have a small stroke.” And she suggested that whatever strength she has comes from her mother, Gerta, who these days lives just minutes away from Ms. Theron in Los Angeles. “I had a foundation, and I had values,” she said. “And my mother made it very clear that they had nothing to do with what I looked like.” Ms. Theron grew up in Benoni, a South African town not far from Johannesburg, where her parents ran a road-construction business. When Ms. Theron was a teenager, her mother shot and killed her father, Charles, a violent, abusive alcoholic. (She was never prosecuted.) And though Ms. Theron was an only child, Gerta encouraged her to leave the country to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer — or ballerina, rather. “Dancer sounds very stripper,” Ms. Theron said with a smile. “That was it. That was all I wanted to do. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that I loved dance because it was acting. I wasn’t technically the greatest, but I succeeded and got lead roles because when I died, I died, and when I was spinning into madness, I was spinning into madness.” Ms. Theron was good enough to be hired by the Joffrey Ballet in New York, but she was probably too tall to be a ballerina to begin with, and by the time she was 19, she was broken down with injuries. “I had the knees of an 89-year-old Polish woman,” she said. It was Gerta who suggested she try her luck in Hollywood, though Ms. Theron says now that neither of them had the slightest idea how the movie business worked. “It was just pure naïveté,” she recalled. “It was around Christmas, we were sitting in my windowless apartment, it was minus-57 outside, and I was eating four gallons of ice cream a day because I was so depressed, and my mother says, ‘Well, how about this acting thing?’ Her philosophy has always been to get on with things. She’s, like, don’t sweep everything under the rug, just sweep half of it.” In her early films Ms. Theron was mostly screen candy, blond and leggy. In Woody Allen’s 1998 movie “Celebrity” her character is aptly called Supermodel. She could act if the part called for it, as in “The Cider House Rules” (1999) — and miraculously she got rid of her Afrikaans accent — but nothing suggested the kind of performance she gave in “Monster,” which won her the best actress Oscar in 2004 and proved to be a watershed in her career. Ms. Jenkins said she hired Ms. Theron on a hunch after watching her in “The Devil’s Advocate” (1997), in which she played Keanu Reeves’s deranged Southern wife who thinks she has been demonically possessed. “It wasn’t an obvious quick choice, because there isn’t anyone like Aileen, but I sensed in Charlize a real bravery and a talent for making herself present,” she remembered. “It’s not what you’d expect from such a beautiful, modelesque woman.” Ms. Theron said she hesitated before taking the part, adding, “I wasn’t sure I was capable of it. I had been waiting for 10 years for an opportunity like that, but it took some crazy person like Patti Jenkins to come along and say, ‘You can do this.’ She really shook my core.” How she did what she did in that film or in subsequent ones is something Ms. Theron prefers not to think about too much. “I don’t want to sound pretentious,” she said, “but when a painter paints, does he know how he does it? There’s a lot about acting I don’t understand.” She had a young actress’s flirtation with the Method, she said, but gave it up because it made her physically ill: “I don’t like living in turmoil and drama and darkness and ugliness all the time. I had no life, and I went into a massive depression. I thought if this is what it takes to be a good actress, then I don’t think I want to do it.” It took her a while, she added, to realize that she could put to use her innate understanding of people and their inner lives. A lot of bad stuff has happened to her, she said, using a more colorful expression. “It’s easy for me to access it,” she said, “but I don’t have to live it.”

[Chloe24]

That was a very good read. I don't know why but I really like this part of the interview, just made complete sense:

"What most drew her to the project, she added, was the chance to work with Mr. Reitman. “I’m very director driven,” she said. “I’ve been in the business for 17 years, and in that time you get to know what you bring to the table. I’m at a point now where I don’t want to bring just that. I want to work with someone who can take me to a level I can’t get to by myself, and I don’t think you get that with just any director. Jason is one of the handful of amazing, talented people out there who can make you do things you can’t do yourself.”


Thanks for the article

[kobro22]

The article is fantastic, so great to finally see her out there, I really hope "Young Adult" puts her back in the spotlight. Her agency WME is really dissapointing in terms of guiding her career.

[dennab216]

I think ultinately that her choice, she seems very very very selective regarding where she wants to be seen and some of her choices are very unexpected (video games telephone luncheon). Weirdly enough she does a lot of interviews with foreign press but again american press is more about gossip and questions regarding private matters than movies, aspiration etc.
If you look closely tons of A-list actresses do very little press as well (Marion Cotillard being one of them). I understand more how she choose her project now. The Burning Plain was a very tricky and strange movie but her character was absolutely terrific. She definitely knows where she want to be and how she wants to be perceived. The great thing with her is that she can decide to not have any major cover for years and yet still get roles and have a very interesting career. I mean she is insanely beautiful, everyone knows it she doesn't need an Elle cover or GQ to prove it and be "out there". However, I still don t get why she chose Snow White instead of Clint Eastwood...but I guess one have to eat too

[dennab216]

Theron, Reitman, Cody Talk Young Adult: Go-for-Broke Screenwriting, *******s Don’t Change, C Word

Quote:

After the sixth and final pop-up screening of Jason Reitman’s Young Adult Tuesday night at Los Angeles’ New Beverly, Reitman, writer Diablo Cody and stars Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt and Elizabeth Reaser did a Q & A. TOH! guest blogger Beth Hanna reports highlights from the conversation. Paramount is releasing the film December 16. Creating their own festival: Juno it ain’t: Reitman kicked off the evening by explaining Young Adult‘s unusual pop-up screening route: “We’ve been on a little run the last two weeks, we’ve been showing this movie in a few different cities. We realized early on this is a very different movie for every one of us. If you were expecting Juno, I apologize. We decided early on that if we’re not going to play film festivals, that we should have a film festival of our own, and that’s what we’ve done for the last two weeks. We went to Chicago and played the Music Box, and went to Toronto and played the Light Box, and we were in Austin and played the Alamo [Drafthouse], and I cannot think of a better way for us to finish this small tour, this small film festival, than to play at the gem of Los Angeles, the mother****ing New Beverly.” Theron’s excitement on meeting Reitman: “I did that horrible, embarrassing thing at the Oscars—it was the year that Up in the Air was nominated - where I got to the Oscars really early and was stuck in a corner with my mom drinking way too much champagne. Jason happened to be in front of me, and I did that horrible thing where I was like, ‘Dude, I really liked your movie.’ A month later, I was at a restaurant and he happened to be there, and it was the right time and the right place, and he said, ‘I read this script, and I think you’d be great for it and you should look at it’... and I **** my pants.” Love at first table read. Oswalt recalled that Theron was so in character during the read that he thought to himself, “Oh my God, if I get this part, getting to play off of her is going to be really amazing,” and that her dedication to the role was “relentless.” Reitman added that his whole outlook on the film changed from that initial dry run: “Table reads reveal a lot about what the movie’s going to be, and it’s the one time when you get to hear the movie from start to finish, where you get to watch the actors build their characters and really figure them out on the fly. Watching [Theron and Oswalt, they] had chemistry immediately, and it was the moment I realized, ‘This is a love story.’” Pessimism and difficult protagonists: “*******s don’t change.” Cody talked about the pessimism in her screenplay and the difficult-to-like Mavis (Theron): “This kind of film is a tough one to get made, particularly because Mavis does not have a classic redemption arc… I am of the mind that *******s don’t change. I just think people in general don’t necessarily change in the dramatic way that we see them change in the third act of movies. So it was very important for me to retain that realism and keep that alive. There are other versions of this movie that sort of exist in an alternate reality—like the romantic comedy version or the feel good version—and that was not the movie that I wanted to make, or that Jason wanted to make.” Oswalt added, “How great that we got to show [the film] here in the New Beverly, where the audiences have been trained to watch movies like Five Easy Pieces and Fat City and The Conversation, where the protagonists do not change or, if anything, get even more embedded in how they are.” The C word. One word captures the vicious sting of Theron’s character—and no, it isn’t “bitch.” Theron got the expletive ball rolling: for a certain scene, she said, she needed a “total funt face.” Oswalt added, “I’m going to say this because I was too much of a ***** to say this in New York. One time in the bar [scene, Jason] went up to Charlize and said, ‘I need way more ‘****y’ from you.’ And she said, ‘I can give it to you, but I don’t think you want it.’ [In the character’s negative expression and demeanor], you absolutely understand that Mavis is doomed, and she doesn’t know it yet.” Reitman agreed: “This is the only movie I’ve done where I’ve had ‘More ****y’ or ‘Less ****y’ as a continuous direction.” Reitman on rehearsal: “I don’t do any rehearsal. I’m not a big believer in it. I feel like movies are about capturing one specific moment that’s never going to happen again, and if you nail it in rehearsal, you’re never going to have it again. I’m confident enough in the actors that I work with that I know in three or four takes that they’re going to get there. Really, it comes down to finding people who have chemistry. And finding people who have a nature about them that exists in the character that they’re playing.” Who chose the music? As in Juno, the music in Young Adult is distinct and evocative. “I did choose the Teenage Fanclub song that plays over the credits and recurs in the movie,” admitted Cody, “and I’m very proud of that, because usually Jason steamrolls my musical decisions. And in this case, that [song] lived. The rest is all Jason.” Reitman gives Cody more credit: “One of the great things about doing Diablo’s screenplays is that there’s so much detail—not just music. The characters are perfectly described, their wardrobes are perfectly described, the production design, the stuff that they have on their shelves. There’s been times when I disagree with the music. I have to admit, I’m not a fan of the Teenage Fanclub song, I don’t like that song. But I heard it, and [I thought] this song is right.” Oswalt on future roles and the allure of a great script: “I don’t know what I’m going to do in the future. I’m a film nerd like all of you, and what attracts me is a great script. This [Young Adult] is a great script. This is no different—for me, at least—from Big Fan or Ratatouille. I think like any film nerd, you want to go beyond genre and read really good, risky, go-for-broke stuff. And this movie, more than anything this year, absolutely puts every chip on one color, one number, and spins. I hope I get to do more stuff that aspires to this level of screenwriting.”

I am more and more interested in this movie. It is a nice change from the typical HW movie.

[kobro22]

Ammarra thanks so much for the interview, so fantastic to see that the roll out for Young Adult has begun, my excited and hope for this movie is building!!