Charlize Theron to receive Icon Award at Academy gala

Charlize Theron reflected on her extraordinary Hollywood journey during An Evening with Charlize Theron at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles as she prepares to receive the museum’s Icon Award.

The Benoni-born Oscar winner will be honoured at the sixth annual Academy Museum Gala on October 17, with the Icon Award recognising an artist whose career has had a significant global cultural impact.

She will be honoured alongside actor Colman Domingo and filmmaker John Carpenter at the prestigious A-list annual event, which raises funds to support the Academy Museum’s exhibitions, public screenings, and educational endeavours.

The upcoming accolade provided a fitting backdrop to last weekend’s event, which looked back at Theron’s career, including Mad Max: Fury Road, the acclaimed 2015 action film shot largely in Namibia, in which she starred as the fictional action hero Imperator Furiosa.

Reflecting on going from small-town Benoni to winning the best actress Oscar for Monster in 2004, Theron wiped away tears onstage during an interview with Shyla Corona and Kamila Gomez of the Academy Museum Teen Council.

“It’s a true testament that dreams come true, you know. And if it can happen to me, trust me, it can happen to anybody.”

“It doesn’t make sense, you know,” she said to the audience before joking with her young interviewers: “You guys suck. I have my daughters here tonight; they can’t see me cry.

“It’s a true testament that dreams come true, you know. And if it can happen to me, trust me, it can happen to anybody.”

Much of the evening focused on Mad Max: Fury Road, which earned 10 Academy Award nominations and won six.

Asked for a favourite memory from the famously gruelling production, the 51-year-old actress and producer revealed that her eldest daughter was only six weeks old when filming began and that she had arrived without arranging a nanny.

“All of the girls in this film and [co-star] Nick Hoult basically raised her for the six months that we were in Namibia,” laughed Theron.

“She was in the rig with us; she was with the driver and my assistant, but in between takes I was feeding her in the rig, and the girls would hold her. Then she would fall asleep or she’d puke on Nick.

“Those are some of my favourite memories because she learned to walk on that movie, so yeah, there’s a deep connection to this film.”

Theron also reflected on her initial struggle to understand her character, Imperator Furiosa.

“I’m allergic to good people, like heroic people who do everything right and for the right reasons,” she said.

“She wants to burn the world down, and you can’t do that as a hero. It took me a while. I had to really figure this out once I was actually in Namibia.”

More than a decade later, Theron said the iconic character continues to resonate with audiences.

“I cannot tell you how many people have walked up to me and showed me a ‘Furiosa’ tattoo on their arm. To see a baby [named Furiosa] in a stroller and [someone] go, ‘Furiosa!’ is like the weirdest thing ever, that is the power of art, the power of storytelling.”