Charlize Theron Felt She Was Built Like a Football Player in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Actor Charlize Theron has often changed her weight to suit the needs of her role. In Mad Max: Fury Road, she opted to put on a lot of muscle to showcase her character’s strength. But her transformation might’ve been more dramatic than she thought it’d be.
Charlize Theron wanted to look as strong as possible for ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Theron had a specific look that she wanted to achieve for Mad Max. Playing a military soldier of sorts, she wanted to look believable in a role that would require her to fight other trained combatants. She also gained the muscle that she did because she felt some female action heroes didn’t look very physically formidable in their action movies.
”I wanted to look like I had tremendous upper body strength because there was so much physicality in the movie – especially with someone like Tom Hardy. I just hate that idea of scrawny little girls fighting men off and then winning. I looked like a football player in this movie,” she once told Total Film (via Contact Music).
However, because of where Theron was in her life at the time, achieving her desired physique wasn’t an easy process.
“There was a physical aspect to this character I had to keep up—upper body strength and a physical look—that was hard because it not necessarily easy for my female body to maintain,” she once told Movies.IE. “We were meant to shoot this movie three years earlier, and that was like the perfect time in my life, when I wanted to kind of set off and just live in a tent in the middle of a desert by myself. But then, by the time we actually made the movie, my life was quite a bit changed. I had just become a new mom, and I had different responsibilities. So, mentally, it was a little tricky for me to get my head around it.”
Charlize Theron felt blindsided by ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Theron was already familiar with the original Mad Max franchise starring Mel Gibson. She noted that her parents were fans of the original films. But although she knew of the franchise, she had no idea what she was getting into with Mad Max: Fury Road. The film’s director George Miller kept details about the project under wraps.
“Well, the whole thing was pretty secret,” she said. “There was a script, but it was really just a long storyboard. George and I had several conversations, and he communicated what he wanted to do with Furiosa, I think, later on—not necessarily even in this movie. So there was a lot of backstory that he introduced me to, and a real intrigue in what he wanted to do with the film, which felt really honest.”
Int he end, all Theron could do was trust the process with Miller and hope for the best.
“Every time you make a film with somebody, there is this moment where you have to kind of just jump off the cliff with them. But, in this case, I feel like we were blindfolded, because there was very little to go by, except for George as a filmmaker, which is, I think, why we all signed up,” she said.
Charlize Theron was heartbroken over not being asked to return for ‘Mad Max’
Theron’s character has taken center stage in the most recent Mad Max film Furiosa. This new installment in the franchise is a prequel focusing on the character. But this time, actor Anya Taylor Joy would be the one playing the character. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, a candid Theron confided that it did hurt a bit that she wasn’t asked to return to the franchise.
“It’s a tough one to swallow. Listen, I fully respect George, if not more so in the aftermath of making Fury Road with him. He’s a master, and I wish him nothing but the best, “ Theron said. “Yeah, it’s a little heartbreaking, for sure. I really love that character, and I’m so grateful that I had a small part in creating her. She will forever be someone I think of and reflect on fondly. Obviously, I would love to see that story continue, and if he feels like he has to go about it this way, then I trust him in that manner. We get so hung up on the smaller details that we forget the thing that we emotionally tap into has nothing to do with that minute thing that we’re focusing on.”
