Noted beautiful person Charlize Theron said in a new interview that it's not always easy being a beautiful person — especially in Hollywood. Uh, are you sure about that?
"Jobs with real gravitas go to people that are physically right for them and that’s the end of the story," she told British GQ. "How many roles are out there for the gorgeous, f***ing, gown-wearing eight-foot model? When meaty roles come through, I’ve been in the room and pretty people get turned away first."
I don't know what world Theron's living in, but it's definitely not one based in reality. (Perhaps it's a land of giants where models tower over the tallest NBA players in history.) Of course "pretty people," Theron included, have a leg up in Hollywood. She would have never been able to rise to prominence if she hadn't been first singled out for her beauty.
British GQ notes that these comments were about "breaking out of being typecast early on." So, of course, Theron's actual career directly contradicts her argument. She won "jobs with real gravitas" — such as her Oscar-winning role in Monster — despite being, you know, stunning. But she's certainly not alone. Take your pick of nearly any Best Actress winner and you'll find a conventionally beautiful woman playing a challenging, complex part. Some of them even "went ugly," as MSNBC put it — like Theron did. Perhaps she just has a very unusual opinion about what constitutes "pretty"?
Buried somewhere in Theron's word soup is a good argument: that there simply aren't enough "meaty roles" for any women out there. Still, that's not what she said, and we're not buying the pretense that being beautiful somehow puts actors at a disadvantage.