Most of the time, people praise celebrities who go to great lengths just to perfectly give life to their characters. However, Charlize Theron recently revealed that there are times when those efforts are basically sidestepped.
The South African actress has received so many accolades for varying roles that it’s really impossible not to know her. If you need a reminder, Charlize was the amazing spy Lorraine Broughton in 2017’s Atomic Blonde, the terrific Fox News journalist in 2019’s Bombshell, and the bold Imperator Furiosa in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road.
There’s no doubt about the sacrifices Charlize had to make in the roles she took. But as much as these are laudable, there are still some people who find fault in all situations.
Case in point, the actress’ character in Monster, a 2003 crime drama movie that also starred Christina Ricci as Selby Wall, the love interest of Aileen Wuornos (Charlize). As a man tried to hurt Aileen, she defended herself and accidentally killed him.
Aileen vowed to veer away from prostitution and to earn money the right way to support her and her partner. However, it didn’t take too long before she realized that this path was hard and soon, she fell back into her old ways.
Anyone who has seen the picture will know how versatile an actress Charlize is, who looked unrecognizable in it. It turns out that the fit star had to put on weight for her role, but not everyone approved of her adding on a few pounds.
In an interview, Charlize, who was also a producer of the film, revealed that she and director Patty Jenkins already knew from the get-go that they would be receiving a lot of heat from bosses. But it’s not just the storyline that got eyebrow raises, even her transformation got nasty comments.
When she started putting on some pounds, a financier called Charlize to tell her that his wife saw the actress with the additional weight, so the guy called her to ask about that. It’s not just the almost 15-kilos she gained that irked the boss – the man said the star doesn’t smile and always looked angry when she acted as the serial killer.
After this, Charlize had second thoughts if she had gotten too far with her choices, but she knew this was important for the character, so she stood her ground. The result was nothing short of amazing: because of Monster, she bagged an Oscar Award for best actress.
