Charlize Theron collected the Icon Award from Sigourney Weaver on Saturday, October 17, as the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles held its sixth annual gala and brought in more than $14 million for its exhibitions, screenings and education work. Asked on the red carpet how the honor felt, Theron answered that it is “always a bit like, is it a dream, is it real,” before adding, “But of course, it’s really lovely.”
She shared the evening with two other honorees. Horror director and composer John Carpenter received the Luminary Award from Jamie Lee Curtis and Robert Rodriguez, and actor Colman Domingo was handed the Vantage Award after dinner by Judd Apatow and Tom Ford. Taylor Swift closed the night with a short set.
Three awards, three careers
The museum named the trio in August and attached a definition to each prize. The Icon Award is meant for an artist with significant global reach; the Luminary Award goes to someone whose work widened what filmmaking can do; the Vantage Award recognizes a film artist pushing back against dominant narratives in cinema.
Theron, now 51, grew up in Benoni, South Africa, and became the first South African to win an acting Oscar when she took best actress for playing Aileen Wuornos in Monster at the 2004 ceremony. Since then she has alternated hard dramas such as North Country and Bombshell with action work, most famously as Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Off screen, she started the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project in 2007 to back community groups working on youth health and HIV prevention.
She was reflective rather than triumphant about the milestone. Her attachment to the work itself, she said, gives her calm about whatever happens once a film is released, and she has never chased a particular audience number. Any honor that follows release is, in her words, “the cherries on the cake.”
Carpenter’s prize was tied to The Horror Show, the museum’s new large-scale exhibition on the genre. He hosted three nights of screenings of his own films in late September, Halloween (1978) among them, and on gala night he was the first guest to arrive, flashing rock-on hand signs for photographers in front of a horror-themed backdrop. Domingo, a two-time Oscar nominee, rounded out the group.
How the money compares
The gala is the museum’s main annual fundraiser, so the total matters more to the institution than the guest list. The 2023 edition, which honored Meryl Streep, Michael B. Jordan, Oprah Winfrey and Sofia Coppola, raised $10 million. Going from $10 million to more than $14 million is an increase of at least $4 million, or 40% or more, in three years.
A quick timeline of who has been celebrated since the museum opened to the public on September 30, 2021:
- 2021: Haile Gerima and Sophia Loren, plus campaign leaders Annette Bening, Bob Iger and Tom Hanks
- 2022: Julia Roberts, Miky Lee, Steve McQueen and Tilda Swinton
- 2023: Streep, Jordan, Winfrey and Coppola
- 2024: Paul Mescal, Rita Moreno and Quentin Tarantino
- 2025: Penélope Cruz, Walter Salles, Bruce Springsteen and Bowen Yang
- 2026: Carpenter, Domingo and Theron
Spielberg and Kate Capshaw co-chaired this year’s event with Rodriguez and Ford, and Rolex, the museum’s founding supporter, again served as presenting partner. Honorees are also expected to take part in public programs around the gala; Theron sat down with the museum’s Teen Council on August 22 for a screening of Fury Road.
Why studios treat it as a campaign stop
The gala has turned into a regular stop on the awards-season circuit, because a single room in mid-October holds much of the film industry at once, and contenders want to be seen in it. Casts and creative teams from awards hopefuls including Project Hail Mary and Obsession were in the building on Saturday.
Swift’s set fit that pattern. Conan O’Brien, who like Swift worked on Toy Story 5, introduced her, and she played “Blank Space,” “Love Story” and “The Fate of Ophelia” before finishing with “I Knew It, I Knew You,” her original song for the film. That last number is her entry in the race for best original song at the Oscars in March.
Further reading
Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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