Top > Entertainment > 2005 > October > 2005-10-17

`North Country` Stars Oscar Winner Charlize Theron

With her latest film, `North Country,` Charlize Theron portrays the true story of Josey Aimes, a single mother who works in the Minnesota local coal mines, trying to provide for her children. Josey discovers that sexual harassment is a typical part of the job and that many of her female co-workers cope with this reality by ignoring it. Using the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation controversy as an inspiration, Josey sues the company. A number of brave women like Theron`s character were involved in this landmark case, which took over a decade to complete. The emotional wounds, however, still haunt the real victims today.

`The first night I got together with the real women and they started telling us the real stories of what had happened to them, it was almost disturbing because they would tell these horrible stories in this very humorous way,` Theron says. `I think it was a way to protect themselves. If they could laugh about it, it somehow wasn`t affecting them as much. And I thought that was incredibly powerful.`

She also has some strong words for anyone who thinks what the women did wasn`t really that courageous. `Our circumstances are so different from these characters. It`s very easy to say, `I would be like Josey. I would fight,`` she says. `For 14 years, would you really? When everyone is ostracizing you and calling you a slut and a nut and crazy and `you asked for all of this`? And your children are being beat up at school because of their mother? Would you really do that?`