IndieWire Honors Video: Charlize Theron Gets Honest About the One Role She Won’t Take On

On November 1, the 2018 IndieWire Honors ceremony celebrated eight filmmakers and actors for their achievement in creative independence. We’re showcasing their work with new interviews conducted right before they accepted their awards at the event.

You don’t snag an award like the IndieWire Honors Maverick Award without willing to be bold when it comes to your choices. For the past two decades, actress and producer Charlize Theron has made consistently smart and unexpected decisions in her career, a product of her willingness to say yes to different things and to never rule out any kind of work.

Asked at last week’s ceremony if there are any projects she would say no to, Theron told IndieWire, “I’m not trying to bullshit you, I don’t know the answer to that, because I think it’s pretty hard to think outside of circumstance, right?”

She even had a prime example ready to go: her Oscar-winning turn in Patty Jenkins’ true-life tale “Monster.” Theron continued, “I don’t think if anybody ever said to me, ‘do you want to play a crazy serial killer who killed seven men?,’ all of that just sounds so abstract and ridiculous. … And then you read a script, and you realize it’s about that human element, right? It’s about that conflict, it’s about the complexities of the things we might not want to spend too much time on in our daily lives to explore.”

This year, Theron reunited with her “Young Adult” filmmaking team, including director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, and she’s also in the midst of starring in Jay Roach’s untitled Roger Ailes biopic as recently ousted NBC anchor Megyn Kelly. That’s some range.

But still, Theron does have some limits. “Porn! I won’t do porn,” she added with a laugh. “Just ’cause I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”

Watch the full interview with IndieWire Executive Editor and Chief Critic Eric Kohn below: