Charlize Fights for Seattle Battle

DENVER – Hollywood honey Charlize Theron was here in the Mile High City yesterday to help her S.O. Stuart Townsend stump for his indie flick “Battle In Seattle.”

Speaking at an event on trade and globalization sponsored by the Congressional Quarterly. Theron, who stars in the movie, said she begged her boyfriend for the role after reading his “brilliant” script.

“I’m incredibly honored to be a part of this film,” said the South African-born actress who became a U.S. citizen last year. “It is the kind of film that, when you walk out, really makes you want to go out and be proactive.”

Townsend’s directorial debut is a dramatization of the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle that escalated into a full- scale riot. The flick also stars Woody Harrelson, Ray Liotta and Michelle Rodriguez.

Speaking on a panel with labor leaders Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. (Teamsters) and Leo Gerard (Steelworkers), Townsend said he is trying to get his independent film out to the masses now because, “like Seattle in 1999, change is in the air.”

Hoffa said “Battle” is the “movie Hollywood doesn’t want you to see” and Gerard urged the labor leaders in the audience to rent movie theaters and screen it for their members.

“The global economic system up until Seattle made rich people richer and poor people poorer,” he said. “I believe that when this film gets out it will be the final nail in the WTO’s coffin.”

The film has a limited release on Sept. 19 and 26.

CAPTION: `Battle in Seattle’ director Stuart Townsend and his on- and off-screen leading lady Charlize Theron appear at Zengo in Denver to flog their new flick. (Staff Photo by Nancy Lane)

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