Charlize Theron gets candid about 'unfair' treatment as woman performer in action movies
Jul 25, 2020
Washington D.C. [USA], July 25 : Drawing from her experience, the Academy Award-winning actor Charlize Theron opened up about the perils of being a woman performer in action movies.
The 44-year-old actor spoke in a panel during Comic-Con@Home on Friday (local time), where she shared her experience of working in 'The Italian Job' and recalled "unfair" treatment during the heist film's preparation phase.
"I realized there was still so much misconception around women in the genre," the People magazine quoted Theron as saying at the virtual roundtable.
The 'Old Guard' star said she took offense with the idea that she couldn't learn as much as her male counterparts in the same amount of training time.
"But there was a very unfair process that went with that. I was the only woman with a bunch of guys, and I remember vividly getting the schedule in our preproduction and they had scheduled me for six weeks more car training than any of the guys," she said.
Theron explained, "The only good thing that came out of that experience was that there was a real pressure to pull off those stunts with the actors - and that was the first time I experienced anything like that,"
"It was just so insulting, but it was also the thing that put a real fire under my a-- and I was like, 'All right, you guys want to play this game? Let's go,'" she continued.
"I made it a point to out-drive all of those guys. I vividly remember Mark Wahlberg, halfway through one of our training sessions, pulling over and throwing up because he was so nauseous from doing 360s, " the 'Bombshell' actor added.
The actor, who is also a mother of two said her role in the 2015 George Miller movie 'Mad Max: Fury Road' allowed her to finally make her mettle strong in action movies.
"It wasn't until 'Mad Max: Fury Road' came my way -- that experience and what happened with that film really changed the trajectory for me," she said of the post-apocalyptic desert runner, which garnered a nomination for best picture. "I don't think I will ever recover from the making of that film," Theron added.
