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Theron will play miner for ''Whale Rider'' director | 91133__ct_l
GOLDEN GIRL Theron (arriving in Johannesburg on March 6) will get dirty again
Charlize Theron: Denis Farrell/AP

''Monster'' Oscar winner Charlize Theron is getting ready to take on another group of abusive men, but this time, she won't kill anybody. Variety reports that she's signed on to star in ''Class Action,'' a drama inspired by a pioneering real-life sexual harassment case. She's teaming up with a woman who directed another Best Actress-nominated performance last year, ''Whale Rider'''s Niki Caro.

The Warner Bros. film, set in the early 1970s, is loosely based on Jensen v. Eveleth Mines, the first successfully prosecuted sexual harassment case in U.S. history. Theron's character is Josie Aimes, who flees an abusive marriage to return to her Minnesota hometown, where she becomes one of the first women to work in the local iron mine, only to face more abuse from her male coworkers. That's when she goes all Norma Rae and leads her female coworkers in taking their complaints to court, at the risk of losing their jobs and being ostracized in the company town.

The ''Class Action'' casting is the second movie deal for Theron in the two weeks surrounding her Oscar victory. Three days before her win, she signed on to star as another killer, the futuristic assassin in the live-action version of MTV's ''Aeon Flux.'' She's currently undergoing acrobatic training for that film, which shoots this summer, with ''Class Action'' to follow at the end of the year.


Posted Mar 12, 2004 | Order Article Reprints