Charlize Theron is officially done with roles that require any extreme body transformation. In an interview, The Old Guard actress/producer discussed how some of her roles have required weight gains or losses and how managing those changes has become more challenging with age. In particular, she opened up about her experiences on the set of Tully. This 2018 dramedy had Theron portraying a pregnant woman gaining a considerable amount of weight for her role. Given how long she lost that weight, she’s sworn never to do anything like that again.
Charlize Theron Talks ‘Tully’ Weight Gain
Directed by Jason Reitman, Tully (2018) starred Charlize Theron as Marlo, an exhausted mother of three struggling with postpartum depression after the birth of her newest baby. Theron, who was 43 then, said she gained close to 50 pounds for her role. “I just wanted to feel what this woman felt, and I think that was a way for me to get closer to her and get into that mindset,” she told ET in 2018. In the same interview, she discusses the process she had to go through, describing the first few weeks as fun – “like a kid in a candy store” – but after the novelty faded, she was left with the chore of eating more food than she found appetizing at any time. It took her around a year and a half to lose the extra weight, reports Theron.
In discussing weight gains and losses, Charlize Theron draws her experiences filming Tully in contrast to her time on the set of Monster, a 2003 crime drama where she starred alongside Christina Ricci. For this film, Theron – then 27 – had to gain 30 pounds but found the process of losing the weight extremely easy, telling Variety that she lost 30 pounds “like, overnight,” saying that she “missed three meals and [was] back to my normal weight.”
When asked what set Monster apart from Tully, Charlize Theron attributes her difficulty with body transformations to the natural metabolism changes that come with age. Regarding her weight loss after Tully, Theron tells Variety:
“I remember a year into trying to lose the weight, I called my doctor and said, ‘I think I’m dying because I cannot lose this weight.’ And he was like, ‘You’re over 40. Calm down. Your metabolism is not what it was.’ Nobody wants to hear that.”
In the same interview, Charlize Theron stated that she “will never, ever do a movie again and say, ‘Yeah, I’ll gain 40 pounds. I will never do it again because you can’t take it off.” The subject of body transformation is a hot one for Theron at the moment, as the actress is in the midst of speculation over whether or not she’s gotten plastic surgery. She maintains that she hasn’t, saying that she’s only aging.
