Francine Stock introduces the South African star to the intimate London venue to discuss her varied career, which rewarded her with an Academy Award for Monster in 2004. Channelling Sharon Stone's ice queen look from A Basic Instinct, the actress speaks for well over an hour about her life and work.
It begins with the loss of Theron's dancing career leading to modelling, and subsequently acting - it's all storytelling in her eyes. While she felt her naïveté in not having grown up in a film culture helped her in the industry, the couple of acting classes she did take helped her to pick apart a script.
There was talk of her first jobs - being licked into shape by James Spader in Two Days in the Valley, and starring alongside Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate. She laughs as she recalls seeing herself in lingerie on a huge billboard on Hollywood Boulevard, but notes that it taught her to be aware of how she would be viewed as an actress. Theron concedes that she focused on having longevity in her career, and revealed how the Two Days' helmer John Herzfeld taught her how important it was to have chemistry with your director.
The first of her film's clips were shown - Woody Allen's Celebrity. Theron has nothing but kind words for her co-star Kenneth Branagh: lovely, perfection, humble, fun. She reveals how she wouldn't have played a model for anyone but Woody, but it gave her a chance to laugh at herself.
It was wonderful to hear Theron's experiences on 1999's The Yards, the first performance that made me sit up and take notice of this new actress. Director James Gray has had the biggest influence on her career, as he was the first filmmaker to fight for her, convincing studio heads she was a real actress and not just a pretty face. Theron adds it was a similar case with Cider House Rules director Lasse Halstrom.
Read the rest of the article & see some great pictures here.