5 bad ass roles of Charlize Theron

Writer: Casey Lee

Charlize Theron as the Atomic Blonde.

While this porcelain beauty from South Africa is best known in Hollywood for her dedicated performance and disfigurement of her natural beauty to look the part, Charlize Theron has always been a sight to behold in whatever she takes a lead role in.

When not embodying a serial killer, or living in her own delusions as a failed writer and former beauty queen, Charlize has never let up her acting chops even in areas where her dramatic skills are less required.

Although she only has a numbered career in genre fare, particularly in the action sector, she has shown that she alone can sometimes be the big draw for anyone who wants to see Charlize dazzle beside a good explosion.

With her being the main attraction for the upcoming "Atomic Blonde" being added to cement her action credentials, she already has been establishing herself for this day, as we look back at some of her most bad ass roles to date.

If Charlize Theron had to shed her beautiful image to win a few Oscars, she is more than prepared to put on her piercing beauty for the friendlier genre fare. Admittedly it was more exciting to see her turn on the evil as Queen Ravenna in the action-oriented retelling of "Snow White and the Huntsman" than a glassy Kristen Stewart to match her beauty no less. Ravenna's deviousness and her embracement of the glamour makes it all the more reason why she was right to poison the princess to be the fairest of them all, which was a good basis for "The Winter's War".

Although we never see her in the stop motioned "Kubo and the Two Strings", Charlize delivers her toughness, while at the same time being a likeable sidekick, through her voice as the paper-crafted Monkey. Brought to life after the confused titular Kubo loses his mother, Monkey is a giver of tough love as a surrogate, but also a fierce protector of her ward, whether against storms or creepy assassin aunts.

Charlize's first attempt at building an action career for herself was hardly recognisable under her short cut black hair as "Aeon Flux". Although the outing turned out to have action sequences closer to "Resident Evil" rather than "Salt", Charlize has shown that she is willing to pull those stretch muscles for some fine butt-kicking when she wants to, only lacking the right setting and director to elevate her stunt choreography. Although "Aeon Flux" did not manage to lift off, it doesn't set a bar too high for "Atomic Blonde" to pass.

Racking up her reputation as a fine villain, Cipher is not only the first female villain in the "Fast and Furious" franchise, but also its most fearsome one yet. Anyone who can threaten to break up La Familia and back it up with a stranglehold that could make Dom go over his growling tone, is already high on the rankings of the franchise's villains. A cunning mastermind, an ambitious terrorist and a looker that makes Michelle Rodriguez want to quit the franchise, Cipher would easily be remembered as one of her greatest villains, not just to the franchise.

All the roles mentioned here as of yet have relied to some degree on her polished looks, but she did not win an Academy award for looking pretty. To prove that she can win audiences, even one as discerning as action junkies, Charlize goes bald and gruff as Imperator Furiosa in "Mad Max: Fury Road", and easily becomes her best known bad ass character yet. Almost as silent as its titular character, and physically his equal with one arm less, Furiosa was as pivotal and developed a character as Max was to the award-winning picture. It is no wonder that hope is still out to see a Furiosa spin-off some day.