Playing her in the Roger Ailes movie taught Charlize Theron to empathize with Megyn Kelly

By Sam Barsanti | March 10, 2019 | 6:06pm

Aux Features Film

Megyn Kelly has had a lousy couple of years, both for her and the general public, with Kelly’s NBC show landing with such an incredibly loud thud that she failed her way straight into a $69 million payout from the network, but Charlize Theron ended up learning how to empathize with the former Fox News star after playing her in Jay Roach’s upcoming movie about disgraced Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Kelly has accused the now-dead Ailes of sexually assaulting and harassing her in her time at the network, and Theron told Variety that preparing for the role taught her how “complicated” Kelly’s situation really was and how “a lot of people” don’t really get just how hard it is for women to speak up about the misconduct of men in power. “She was in a complicated place,” Theron said, “and as a human being, I have empathy for that.”

It sounds like Kelly’s story really did touch Theron, with her also noting that she refused to meet with her in preparation for the role in order to “tell the story from afar” and not to distort her “perspective,” but she says it “could get emotional” if she had taken the time to sit down with Kelly. As we’ve previously reported, Roach’s movie will be about the major players at Fox News during Ailes’ reign, with John Lithgow playing the man himself alongside Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, Connie Britton, and Malcolm McDowell—it’s an unsurprisingly good project for white women with blonde hair and older white guys.