Charlize Theron Opens Up About What She’ll Never Do Again in Her Career

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 22 August 2023

Charlize Theron is known for fully immersing herself in each role she undertakes—but, she told Allure, there’s one thing she’ll never do for a movie role again. “I will never, ever do a movie again and say ‘Yeah, I’ll gain 40 pounds,’” she said. “I will never do it again because you can’t take it off. When I was 27, I did Monster. I lost 30 pounds, like, overnight. I missed three meals, and I was back to my normal weight. Then I did it at 43 for Tully, and I remember a year into trying to lose the weight, I called my doctor and I 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.”

Of gaining weight for a part, “that stuff is hard,” Theron said. Of her stylist, Leslie Fremar, Theron said “I call her and say, ‘I’m doing this movie about postpartum depression, and I’ve gained like 40 pounds.’ And she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! How am I gonna dress you?’ It’s not something that you can just figure out last minute. She’s put a lot of blazers over open backs for me.”

In addition to speaking about gaining and losing weight, Theron opened up to the magazine about aging, telling the outlet “My face is changing, and I love that my face is changing and aging,” she said. But, she added, “people think I had a facelift. They’re like, ‘What did she do to her face?’ I’m like, ‘Bitch, I’m just aging! It doesn’t mean I got bad plastic surgery. This is just what happens.’”

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It's a double standard that has existed forever in the industry, where men aging is celebrated and women aging? Not so much. “I’ve always had issues with the fact that men kind of age like fine wines and women like cut flowers,” Theron said. “I despise that concept and I want to fight against it, but I also think women want to age in a way that feels right to them. I think we need to be a little bit more empathetic to how we all go through our journey.”

There is hope that times are changing, though; Theron said her daughters “have no concept of what age is like,” she said. “They see somebody, they like what they’re wearing, or they think they’re pretty, and they don’t really know if she’s in her twenties or she’s in her sixties. It’s so great. I love that. I wish we could just maintain that.”

Here’s hoping.

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.