Charlize Theron Refuses to Gain Weight for Any New Roles, Here’s Why

Charlize Theron is stepping away from roles that require radical changes to her body. The Academy Award winner explained in a recent interview the reason behind her decision, and we can’t blame her for it.

Charlize Theron’s dedication to her craft has led her to embrace demanding roles like those in Monster (2003) and Tully (2018), where she put on weight in order to physically transform into her characters, a real-life convicted criminal and an exhausted mother of three. She even won an Oscar for Best Actress for her work in the 2003 movie.

Despite her success with those roles, Theron isn’t keen on repeating those experiences, and she opened up about it. “I 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,” she said. “When I was 27, I did Monster. I lost 30 pounds, like, overnight. I missed 3 meals, and I was back to my normal weight.”

However, aging took its toll, and the 48-year-old confessed that her body can no longer shed extra pounds as easily. “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,” Theron admitted.

Not only that, but she also reflected on how doing stunts in action movies is becoming more and more challenging as time passes. “The thing that really bums me out is that I make action movies now, and if I hurt myself, I take way longer to heal than I did in my 20s,” she added. “More than my face, I wish I had my 25-year-old body that I can just throw against the wall and not even hurt tomorrow. Now, if I don’t work out for 3 days and I go back to the gym, I can’t walk. I can’t sit down on the toilet. It’s all those very real moments.”

Transforming for a role is a common occurrence in the life of an actor. However, most transformations nowadays are done with the help of makeup or visual effects. Even so, a few dedicated Hollywood veterans still use drastic measures to physically turn into their characters.