Charlize Theron calls out Hollywood's double standards about actresses' body transformations

Los Angeles, Aug 23 (IANS) Actress Charlize Theron is known for her method acting as well as her more naturalised behavioural acting, even undergoing great body transformations. The acclaimed star as such has won unanimous praise and is a big name in Hollywood, though she has recently become a strong critic of the industry, calling them out on their double standards regarding female actors, particularly for body transformations.

According to Variety, the actress said in an interview with Allure: “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. 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.”

It took Theron over one year to get back to her pre-production weight once ‘Tully’ was complete. At one point, she even reached out to a doctor to determine why she could not seem to shed the pounds, which does in fact have a lethal effect on many actors when they undergo massive body transformations.

“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 added.

The ‘Hancock’ actress in her interview with Allure, added “I’ve always found it so funny when I’ve gained weight for movies and then had to go onto a red carpet. I call (my stylist, Leslie Fremar) 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.”

It’s not just losing weight that became harder for Theron as she got older. Now 48, she said it “bums her out” that when she hurts herself on the set of an action movie, “I take way longer to heal than I did in my 20s.”

“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,” said Theron, who in the past decade has starred in action movies including ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ and ‘Atomic Blonde’. “Now, if I don’t work out for three days and I go back to the gym, I can’t walk. I can’t sit down on the toilet.”