“ARE you flirting with me? I’m taken. I’m in a relationship. Back off, lady…” teased South African-born beauty Charlize Theron in a recent interview in London to promote her latest movie Hancock (which she stars alongside Will Smith and Jason Bateman).

The 33-year-old former fashion model, currently engaged to Irish actor Stuart Townsend, was responding to a question as to whether she enjoys the physical aspect of the acting, especially during the fight scenes in the comedy/drama/action Hancock, directed by Peter Berg.

“With my background of growing up on stage as a ballerina, I have always enjoyed being in a form of physical performance to tell stories — through body movements than words. It’s great to be able to continue doing that,” she said.

With Hancock, the Academy Award winner for Best Actress (for her role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the 2003 film Monster) starred in yet another CGI-rich film after the box-office bomb Aeon Flux in 2005.

“I am not driven by genre. It really boils down to good material. When I read the script for Hancock, I didn’t feel like it really fits in a box and I like that. It’s not a quintessential genre film,” said the actress who is also Golden Globe Award (Best Actress) winner for her role in Monster.

If she had worn fake dentures in Monster and didn’t care much about looking good in North Country (2005) in which she plays a miner in a sexual harassment case, that’s because Theron doesn’t like to play herself.

“It’s not that I consciously want to look a different way in my films. More than anything else in my career, I like to take difficult roles. I want the materials to challenge me. Playing women from different economic backgrounds in harsh landscapes gives me this satisfaction.

“I don’t want to be Charlize Theron in a film. I do think it’s getting harder with the constant focus on the celebrity world today.”

Growing up with ‘70s cinema, she enjoys films by Meryl Streep.

“At that time, I didn’t know who Meryl Streep was as a celebrity. It didn’t matter to me. All I knew was her craft. So whenever she starred in a movie, I was like ‘I will be there whatever the character!’.

She continued: “There is a part of me that tries to hang on to this old-fashioned belief because that’s what inspired me to be in acting in the first place. So I try to raise the bar every time I go to work, where roles are concerned.”

When she looks in the mirror, what does she see?

“What I see, I absolutely love,” said Theron with a laugh, adding “this morning it wasn’t pretty though.”

Theron said she doesn’t go out of her way to play ugly women.

“I think we all have to remember what my job is really about. I understood that people would essentially end up talking about how I look in Monster because it involved a physical transformation (she also put on weight for the role).

“But it got a little hard when people said that I went for another role transformation in North Country. I was like ‘Really?’ But that’s dirt on my face. That’s not a transformation.”

“Then, people said I had another transformation, with In the Valley of Elah (the 2007 Academy Award-nominated which she starred as a detective) — but that’s me without make-up and in my natural (brunette) hair colour. That’s not a transformation!

“For a while, people jumped on the whole physical aspect of my performance and made it sound like it was something I was trying to set out — to ‘transform’ in my films. I wasn’t. I just wanted to be authentic to the work.”

It’s easy to think that Hollywood only took notice of her following her Oscar win with Monster. But looking back, Theron said she doesn’t feel that her career before Monster has been “a waste of time”.

“I do feel like I’ve had good roles prior to Monster. Coming from South Africa, my background has made me unique in the (casting) room. I never thought that one day I’d be playing quintessential American women, but as we all know, the human condition bleeds over into every language and culture.

“You don’t have to be from a particular culture to understand what it’s like to be a human being.”

As for her characters, she didn’t feel that they are typically “strong women”.

“I play flawed women. They make a lot mistakes. Maybe they’re reluctant strong women — because of the circumstances they’re in. So they have to pick themselves up and find strength.

“I am not necessarily interested in playing characters who just walk into a scene to change the world without finding her voice and her flaws first.”

Does she think the characters she played in the past are sad women?

“Oh, no. We should all look back in our lives and see the pain and hurt as something to empower us, not something to regret. They are not tragic. They make us who we are so we should all grow form them.”

In Hancock, she plays an atypical American housewife Mary, who is married to public relations executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman).

Theron said she is also responsible for Mary’s script.

“I wrote her script. Don’t listen to what Akiva (Goldsmith, the producer) has to say,” she said with a laugh.

“I truly believe that film-making is a collaborative effort. Good films are made when there is mutual effort by the parties.

“I am fortunate enough to be able to work with people who want to do it that way. We spent close to three weeks before we started shooting the movie — in a room like this, for nine hours a day just talking about the material and going through the re-writing process.”

She said having Will, Akiva, Jason and Peter “was an amazing experience”.

“We’re all very opinionated. We also came in with an understanding of how original the material was and wanting to do justice to it.”

During the pre-production process, she said: “They were great moments when we all went ‘yeah, that’s a great scene!’ and we all felt like we understand what they’re all really about. Then they were times when I wanted to crawl under a piano and cry.”

Source: nst.com