We all know Charlize Theron has put herself through the ringer for some of her most memorable performances – and maybe some of her flops as well – with weight gain proving a bit of a secret weapon, packing on the pounds for both Monster and Tully. But now that she’s nearing 50, she is refusing to put her body through anything like that again.
Speaking with Allure, Charlize Theron discussed the push and pull of gaining and losing weight for roles, naming both 2003’s Monster – for which she won the Academy Award – and 2018’s Tully, for which she put on nearly 50 pounds to play a woman going through postpartum depression. “I will never, ever do a movie again and say, ‘Yeah, I’ll gain 40 pounds.’ I will never do it again because you can’t take it off…When I was 27, I did Monster. I lost 30 pounds, like, overnight. I missed three meals and I was back to my normal weight. Then I did it at 43 for Tully, and I remember a year into trying to lose the weight, I called my doctor and I said, ‘I think I’m dying because I cannot lose this weight.’ And he was like, ‘You’re over 40. Calm down. Your metabolism is not what it was.’ Nobody wants to hear that.”
Part of the urge to get back to a desired goal weight comes from the social stigma, which even bleeds into the profession, as Charlize Theron said her stylist has had to “put a lot of blazers over open backs for me.” It took Theron around three and a half months to shed that added pounds.
And even though Charlize Theron has had a string of action movies as of late, including Atomic Blonde, two Fast and the Furious flicks and The Old Guard (with its sequel set for this year), she’s well aware that the physical demand that goes beyond weight may be getting the best of her attempts. “The thing that really bums me out is that I make action movies now and if I hurt myself, I take way longer to heal than I did in my 20s. More than my face, I wish I had my 25-year-old body that I can just throw against the wall and not even hurt tomorrow.”
What is your favorite Charlize Theron performance? Do you prefer her in action movies or more dramatic performances?