Charlize Theron wants 'Mad Max: Fury Road’s' Furiosa to have the same impact as 'Alien’s' Ripley

Charlize Theron wants her Mad Max: Fury Road character Furiosa to match the impact of Alien’s Ripley, who was iconically portrayed by Sigourney Weaver.

Theron made this admission during her recent Comic-Con at Home panel, which was aptly entitled Charlize Theron: Evolution Of A Badass - An Action Hero Career Retrospective, admitting that she instantly saw the potential in Furiosa.

“Furiosa is one of the most important characters I’ve ever played. And I saw the potential, I knew how special it was right from the beginning and I chased it really hard because of that.”

Read More: Mad Max Fury Road 2 is still delayed but there's some hope yet

“I saw something that I’d never seen before as an opportunity for myself as an actor...to show a female character in a way that felt...the closest moment in my own life that I can look back to was the first time I saw Sigourney Weaver play Ripley.”

Theron then broke down the importance of Weaver’s performance as Ripley in Alien, saying it “changed everything” for her and made everything seem possible.

“The amount of intelligence she brought to that role, she was completely in [command] of it. She owned that world. But it wasn’t forced and it wasn’t written and it wasn’t acted. It was just lived. She was just living in that world in such an authentic way.”

She instantly saw the same opportunities in her Mad Max: Fury Road character.

Read More: 'Fury Road' stunt double reveals how 'challenging' Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron feud affected set

“Furiosa was the first time that I really felt like I couldn’t even look at her as a character. She felt so real to me. And maybe it was because she was so hard. The fact that we were [making the movie] for so long. We really did live in that environment for so long. It made me feel that way about her.”

“If that character, in a small part, can do what Ripley did for me as an actress, as a woman, that’s something I’m incredibly proud of. That doesn’t happen in everybody’s career and I feel really lucky that I was given that opportunity, that I was prepared for that opportunity and that I was willing to lay it all out there, to give it my all.”