Charlize Theron covers the June issue of Elle UK. The release of Mad Max: Fury Road is almost upon us. I think the press tour has been pretty interesting so far – Charlize and Tom Hardy have been doing their own things, doing separate interviews and both have spoken candidly about how they actually did fight on-set. It’s sort of refreshing to hear two adult actors talk about this stuff like actual adults. Like, “Yeah, we fought but I respect her” and “Yes, we didn’t always see eye to eye but we’re both professionals.” Charlize’s character in the film is already being called a feminist action hero, and in real life, Charlize is waving the feminist flag too. Some highlights from her Elle UK interview:

Asking for & getting equal pay for ‘Snow White’ sequel: ‘I have to give them credit because once I asked, they said yes. They did not fight it. And maybe that’s the message: That we just need to put our foot down. This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn’t mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you’re doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way.’

The pay disparity on ‘American Hustle’: ‘When I thought about the temperature out there – with finding out what Jennifer and Amy were being paid on a set with guy actors who are their counterparts… They’re just as good as any of the guys on there. Yeah, that p*ssed me off!’

Being objectified for her role in 2 Days In The Valley: ‘Someone thought it was a good idea to market almost the entire movie on me; objectifying me a little bit. I got a lot of attention from it, but the problem was that, afterwards, it was like, “We want you to do that again. Can you just do that? And so I didn’t work for almost two years.”’

Working with Sean Penn on ‘The Last Face’: ‘Putting aside that he’s my partner, he’s the love of my life; for the first time, I felt that my work was really bleeding into my life and that made it hard. There were moments where I was incredibly unfair to him. And moments where I felt like… he was incredibly unfair to me. But it makes you realise that no matter how complicated it gets, the priority is the relationship.’

[From Elle UK]

Charlize did demand equal pay for the sequel to Snow White & the Huntsman and she did it right after the Sony Hack leak. What was weird about that story wasn’t that Charlize had the stones to ask for more money (good for her), it was that the studio’s default was to pay Chris Hemsworth MORE than Charlize for no real reason. Like, Chris Hemsworth can only carry a movie if he’s got a big hammer. Charlize is an Oscar-winning actress who has already carried a wide variety of films. Why wasn’t she already being paid MORE than Hemsworth, not just the same amount?

As for the rest of it… I believe Charlize is a feminist and I believe she fights for women everywhere and for her own interests. I also think that she sort of kneecaps her own feminist arguments by referring to Sean Penn as “the love of my life.”

Elle UK covers courtesy of Bjarne Jonasson/ELLE.