Charlize Theron Needed a Lot of Alcohol to Do Scenes With Patton Oswalt for ‘Young Adult’
Actor Charlize Theron has often given performances in movies that are lauded by critics and fans alike. To do a film justice, the actor might apply different methods to prepare for different roles.
When it came to her and Patton Oswalt, Theron confided that alcohol was their method of choice to bring the best out of their scenes.
Charlize Theron didn’t act for three years before ‘Young Adult’
Young Adult was a 2011 dramatic comedy starring Charlize Theron as a successful writer who returns to her hometown after years in the city. The movie also featured actors like Patton Oswalt and Patrick Wilson playing her former hometown friends.
When she first received a script for the Jason Reitman-directed feature, the Oscar-winner was attracted to its uniquness. Theron believed the movie felt a lot more real than others in similar genres.
“Sometimes when I watch movies they can feel very unrealistic and the third act is always kind of like this ‘a-ha!’ moment for every character and I just don’t know those people in real life. And it was really nice to read somebody on the page that felt human to me, a woman who doesn’t go through this amazing ‘a-ha!’ moment,” she said in a 2012 interview with SeenIt.
Theron had already taken a break from acting that lasted three years. So she felt Young Adult, with its cast and crew, was the perfect film to end her hiatus.
“I know it sounds unbelievably cliche, but I haven’t worked in three years, and to have the opportunity to come back and do something like this with Pat, Diabo, and Jason, who I really wanted to work with in this kind of material. To see people respond to it has been the greatest gift,” she once told Collider.
Charlize Theron needed a lot of alcohol to do her scenes with Patton Oswalt in ‘Young Adult’
Oswalt was one of the most enjoyable aspects of working on Young Adult for Theron. The actor discovered that the two actually had a lot in common, which served their onscreen characters well.
“Patton and I right off the bat had such great chemistry. From the moment that we met. We have the same sense of humor,” she once told The Film Experience. “He didn’t let me get away with my s***. I didn’t let him get away with his s***. In a way we became the characters. It sounds so bizarre but we just started having that relationship where he pushed my buttons and I pushed back.”
But Theron wasn’t a huge fan of rehearsing her scenes with Oswalt. If only because The Old Guard star didn’t enjoy the rehearsal process in general. Theron turned to an interesting resource to help nail her scenes with Oswalt.
“A lot of alcohol,” she revealed.
Oswalt also agreed that alcohol often took the edge off when it came to testing out scenes.
“We call it acting juice. We kind of got along right at the first table read. We were teasing each other, there was just something,” Oswalt said.
Why Charlize Theron took a long break from acting before ‘Young Adult’
Theron confided that there wasn’t anything too dramatic behind her hiatus from the film industry. The actor had several important gigs lined up during that time frame, but they were for jobs behind the scenes.
“There wasn’t anything coming my way that was blowing me away and also I started producing and developing a lot of television. So I was really busy and at the same time I was physically getting ready to go and do Fury Road so I was kind of off the market and belonging to Warner Brothers,” she said.
