Gender-swapping is the new trend in Hollywood and Charlize Theron is now a part of it as she takes the role originally meant for Brad Pitt in The Gray Man.
Though her role as Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max will not appear in the sequel, Theron has a greater role coming up as a CIA agent-turned-assassin who must save daughters she didn’t know she had.
Charlize Theron probably won’t reprise Furiosa role in MAD MAX sequel: http://t.co/rBfDWj2hWk by @trilbyberesford
— Nerdist (@nerdist) October 12, 2015
The role was originally offered to Brad Pitt but the film was put on hold. Reportedly, the script would be revised to fit the twist that Theron will be playing.
Charlize Theron to take Brad Pitt part in #TheGrayMan http://t.co/IZ9ABX49GJ #MovieNews pic.twitter.com/p9MB74KxVK
— IMDb (@IMDb) October 13, 2015
According to Sandra Bullock, gender-swapping can be a cure to gender imbalance in Hollywood, because there are limited roles given to women, unlike men.
“We deserve to have stories that reflect that. And normalize that instead of it being a rarity. ‘Oh she’s intelligent? She wants to travel the world and do things for herself? Well, that’s weird.’ That’s the way it’s played out for so long,” Bullock said.
Bullock is working on Our Brand Is Crisis, which was originally supposed to star her friend George Clooney in the lead role. However, she reached out to Clooney to express her interest in taking his place, after having difficulty finding interesting roles for female actors.
Sandra Bullock stole her latest role from George Clooney. He says more women should do that. http://t.co/Onz1B46tB9 pic.twitter.com/JDvhlcTkNM
— someecards (@someecards) September 15, 2015
“Sandy called and said she wanted to do the role, [which] was originally developed for a man,” Clooney said in an interview. “And once we realized that you could change it really easily, it made you realize that there are an awful lot of women’s roles that could be out there if people just started thinking in this way.”
Aside from Theron, Angelina Jolie played a role intended for Tom Cruise in Salt and recently, Carrie-Anne Moss was revealed to play a man’s role in Marvel’s Jessica Jones series.