Charlize In Whale Rider Directors 'Class Action'

[Friday, March 12th, 2004]
Charlize Theron is on the verge of sealing a deal to star for director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) in the drama Class Action, according to Variety.

Class Action would mark the second film deal for Theron since Monster. Like Aileen Wuornos, whom she played in her Oscar-winning performance, Theron's Class Action character is a woman who has been abused by men all her life until she becomes fed up and does something radical about it. Her remedy is to become the key plaintiff in the first successful sexual harassment prosecution in the U.S.

Class Action is a fictionalized version of the Jensen v. Eveleth Mines case. Theron will play Josie Aimes, a young mother who flees an abusive husband during the early '70s, heads home to her Minnesota hometown and becomes one of the first women to get jobs in the iron mine that employs most residents, including her father. She and her female co-workers are verbally and physically harassed by their male co-workers. The mine owners turn a deaf ear to their complaints and the women are terrified to lose their jobs. Though she risks being ostracized by her family, Aimes become a Norma Rae-like figure in mobilizing defiance through legal action.

If the deal is completed Warner Bros. are aiming for a winter start.

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