The Oscar-winning actress, Charlize Theron, who essays the role of Megyn Kelly in Jay Roach’s Bombshell, admitted during a Q&A session following the Manhattan screening of Bombshell that she almost turned down the role.
Though initially “s***-scared” of taking on the role, Theron attributed her hesitation to Kelly being “incredibly well known” and “conflicting”. The actress explained that she came around after receiving encouragement from her director, Roach, who had read the script but wasn’t yet attached to the project.
As a producer on the film, she admitted she wondered if “there’s somebody out there who can do this better than you can.” Theron shared, “I was looking for a filmmaker to push me to that last part, and he did it so eloquently that I asked him to join us in making this.”
According to Theron, Bombshell has been made available to a number of women who shared their stories, and she hopes Kelly herself will see it. “I have complete empathy that this must be a hard process for all of them, but maybe more so for Gretchen and for Megyn because they’re kind of at the center of it. But I feel that we never went into this to do anything other than do them justice.”
Written by Charles Randolph, the film features an ensemble cast, including Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, and John Lithgow, and is based upon several women at Fox News, who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment.
Bombshell is slated to release on December 20, 2019.
