OLDER, BUT WISER

Charlize Theron's injuries, Uma Thurman's boundaries

- ROBERT ITO

In the Netflix action epic The Old Guard 2, Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman play immortal warriors blessed — or cursed, depending on your outlook — with incredible recuperative powers.

Stab them in the back, shoot them in the face, and whammo, they heal in seconds. Theron’s character, Andromache of Scythia (Andy for short), has been fighting the good fight, and several bad ones, for more than 6,000 years. Her archnemesis Discord, played by Thurman, is even older.

Theron is returning to her role five years after the critically acclaimed first film (New York Times critic A.O. Scott praised its fight sequences and its “tone of hard-boiled melancholy”). The sequel is also Thurman’s high-profile return to the action movie genre, 21 years after she starred in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 2.

The actors created two of the most celebrated action heroines of all time: Thurman's The Bride, the vengeful, katana-wielding assassin of the Kill Bill films, and Theron’s Imperator Furiosa, the buzzcut-sporting, big rig-driving heroine of Mad Max: Fury Road. Fury Road was one action film among many for Theron (others include Atomic Blonde, The Italian Job and The Fast And The Furious franchise). After the Kill Bill films, however, Thurman eschewed the action film genre for romcoms, TV and a run on Broadway, among other things.

The two recently got together at the Netflix offices in Hollywood to discuss women in action films, onset injuries and what they won't do in a picture.

Uma, it’s been a while since you’ve done an action movie. Why now, and why this one?