Charlize Theron’s ‘Italian Job’ Co-Stars Thought It Was a Joke That She Would Do ‘Monster’
Actor Charlize Theron floated the idea of starring in the Oscar-winning Monster to quite a few people before actually doing the movie. Even her Italian Job co-stars caught wind of her aspirations to do the incredibly dark film. However, her castmates wondered how serious she was about actually doing the movie.
Charlize Theron told her ‘Italian Job’ co-stars about ‘Monster’
Theron sought feedback from quite a few people when she was gearing up to do Monster. The 2003 feature was a massive departure from Theron’s usual flicks, as it saw her portray real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos. In an interview with Advocate, Theron remembered shopping the script around to see if others would’ve liked it as much as she did. Some couldn’t wait to see her in the movie. Others, however, were left confused.
“My mom read the script and she really loved it. She actually said, ‘You’d be crazy if you don’t do this.’ My friends, I think…it was a slow process for them. I didn’t really talk to a lot of people about it,” Theron said.
She eventually shared the news with some of her Italian Job co-stars. The 2003 feature saw Theron alongside an ensemble cast that included Mark Wahlberg and Edward Norton. Of her castmates, Jason Statham and Seth Green learned about Theron’s future Monster role.
“The only thing that happened was, I started watching the documentaries in my trailer [with costars] Jason Statham and Seth Green when I was doing The Italian Job,” she said. “We had, like, four hours off, and I said, ‘I got an offer to play this woman and the script is really good, but I don’t know anything about her, so I was just gonna watch these documentaries, if you guys wanna come watch with me.’ When [Aileen] came on [screen], I think Jason or Seth said something like, ‘You’re kidding me, right? This is a joke, right?’ I went, ‘No, it’s not.’”
Although Statham and Green were initially shocked by Theron’s involvement in the feature, the two actors grew invested in the movie.
“[After that] we just talked about it every day. They would ask me what’s going on and if I’m going to do it and ‘How are you guys going to do the transformation?’ and ‘Who’s going to play Selby?’ They were really interested in it, and I think they were really the only two,” she recalled.
Theron felt people treated her differently whenever she stopped playing her ‘Monster’ character
Theron had to step outside herself for the vast majority of filming to play her Monster character Aileen Wuornos. Her makeup and weight gain for the role almost rendered her unrecognizable. Theron also had to alter how she carried herself, as she and the real Aileen had polar opposite mannerisms.
“She’s so the opposite of me,” she said. “I have really bad posture, and my head is always down. When I make a point I tend to squint my eyes. Aileen is like head back, shoulders back, eyes big. What happened was, the more I dived into her life, the more I realized that everything she did physically came from an emotional place.”
The cast and the crew, including director Patty Jenkins, became too accustomed to seeing Theron as Aileen Wuornos. So much so that when she reverted back to her real self, they didn’t know how to react to her.
“I was trying to walk like Aileen, to carry myself like Aileen, things like that. And I think everyone [on the crew] got used to that right from the beginning. When I wasn’t Aileen–when I didn’t have the contact lenses in or the teeth in–they were treating me weird. Like, Patty wouldn’t be able to make eye contact with me. I would show up in the morning and she couldn’t look me in the eye until I had the contacts in,” she said.
She’d later quip that her co-workers had to get to know her all over again after she stopped filming the movie.
