South African and American actress Charlize Theron is one of the world’s highest-paid actresses with an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award among other accolades under her belt. She had her breakthrough role in 1997 in the movie The Devil’s Advocate starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves.

Charlize Theron is the first African woman to have won an Oscar for acting and was nominated for another Academy Award for her portrayal of a s*xually abused woman demanding justice in 2005’s North Country. Initially, she wanted to be a dancer, but a knee injury closed that path and soon, she found herself struggling until she accidentally met talent agent John Crosby who introduced her to an acting school.

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron Had to Switch Careers

In 1994, after the unfortunate knee injury that led to Charlize Theron changing her mind about her dancing career, her mother bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles from New York where the Young Adult actress aimed to get into the Hollywood entertainment industry as an actor.



Charlize Theron in Snow White and the Huntsman

Theron began her acting career in 1995 with a non-speaking role in the horror film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. Her first speaking role was as a hitwoman named Helga Svelgen in the movie 2 Days in the Valley. However, directors soon began to typecast her as Helga Svelgen which she knew wasn’t a good idea because of her appearance.

Luck favored Theron once again as she was introduced to talent agent J. J. Harris, who helped the Bombshell actress find roles in films of a variety of genres and also encouraged her to become a producer. Out of the three movies that gained her worldwide recognition, only two, namely The Cider House Rules and The Devil’s Advocate became commercially successful.

Charlize Theron Didn’t Get Along with Tobey Maguire

Charlize Theron with Tobey Maguire in a scene of The Cider House Rules

In the 1999 movie The Cider House Rules, Charlize Theron was cast as a woman who was seeking abortion in Maine during the World War II era. She was cast as Candy Kendall opposite Tobey Maguire’s Homer Wells. However, she once said that she didn’t get along with her co-star Maguire. She said: “Tobey and I had a bit of a rough time. I mean, we’re good now. It was a difficult movie. Every day is completely different for a completely different reason.”

Theron insisted that there were only “a couple of days” when she didn’t get along with the Spider-Man star and that she loves Maguire. She also said that working on this movie was a teaching experience as her relationship with Tobey Maguire was not the best, so she had to figure something else out.