CHARLIZE THERON - A MONSTER MAKEOVER
____________________________________________________
by Harold von Kursk
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF - Seldom has an actress of
comparable stature undergone such a radical
transformation. Nicole Kidman may have had her nose
turned into a potato to play Virginia Woolf, but it
was still evidently Kidman. In order to play
notorious serial killer Aileen Wuornos, however,
Charlize Theron gained 30 pounds, added some blotchy
skin makeup, wore crooked teeth implants, and in the
process has rendered herself virtually unrecognisable.
She also takes us on such a shattering psychological
journey as Wuornos that most observers consider her a
favourite to succeed Kidman as winner of this year's
Oscar for Best Actress. Ironically, Theron tried
several times to beg off the project prior to the
start of filming.
"I tried several times to convince Patty (director
Patty Jenkins) that I wasn't going to be able to pull
it off," reveals Theron. "It wasn't the physical
transformation that worried me - anyone can gain 30
pounds and add the makeup and teeth to make yourself
look ugly - it was going into the head of a sad,
desperate, abused, and twisted woman. Aileen wasn't
some writer's creation, she was a real-life person.
If I were going to make this movie, I wanted to be
able to live with myself and not feel that I created
some crazed caricature. I felt I had a responsibility
to her life and give people some insight into what
made her a killer."
MONSTER depicts the final murderous chapter in the
life of Aileen Wuornos, a man-hating, low-rent
prostitute who eventually turned to murdering her
"johns." What emerges is a searing profile of a woman
who was the victim of an abusive childhood, a teenage
rape, and a life on the fringes of society. The film
is also a deeply disturbing love story involving
Wuornos and another troubled young woman, played in
eerie fashion by Christina Ricci. The two meet in a
bar and Wuornos falls in love with her. Desperate to
keep their relationship alive, Wuornos continues to
work as a prostitute because nobody will hire her for
a regular job. Her killing spree is set off after she
kills a john who turns violent on her.
For Theron, 28, this may be the film which finally
gives her the landmark role which has thus far eluded
her. Previous films like CELEBRITY, THE ASTRONAUT's
WIFE, and THE CIDER HOUSE RULES all earned her strong
notices, but none of those films provided her with the
classic lead role that would have transformed her
career. MONSTER may well be that film.
Already the influential American film critic Roger
Ebert has declared MONSTER the year's best film and
Theron's portrayal "one of the best in the history of
the cinema.." She's already won the National Society
of Film Critics' best actress award, and been
nominated for the Golden Globe, accolades which have
helped relieve some of Theron's lingering self-doubts
about how far she can go as an actress.
I spoke to Charlize Theron in Beverly Hills recently
where the statuesque South African spoke about the
challenge of turning herself into Wuornos and the
curious anomaly of being a beautiful woman who
willingly threw herself into the mind and body of a
profoundly ugly human being. In private, Theron is
enjoying a romance with British actor Stuart
Townshend, whom she met on the set of HEAD IN THE
CLOUDS in Montreal early last year.
THE INTERVIEW
Q: Aside from gaining the weight, what was the hardest
part of becoming Ailenn Wuornos?
THERON: It wasn't the kind of thing where you can
switch yourself on and off and the character would
come and go. I had to put myself as closely as I could
into her state of mind as far as I could detemine what
it was. I studied many hours of taped reports and
interviews with her.
I lived with her particular swagger the whole day
getting ready for the film, learning how to deal with
the extra weight, wearing the same kind of clothes,
and trying to get used to that body.
This wasn’t an ordinary acting job. I was emotionally
invested at every level and once I was into it there
was no backing out for me even though I was scared
sometimes by the character I was playing.
Q: Does a beautiful woman have to transform herself to
be taken seriously?
THERON: I hope not. But having said that, I think that
this has been great for me because with the
transformation, I think people had a chance to get
away from what they might think of when they think of
me. I don’t think that every great performance has to
necessarily have a great transformation. I think that
hopefully writers will get encouraged to write,
whether it’s the wife or the girlfriend, a normal
human being, just write interesting, challenging
characters no matter what they look like.
Q: Director Patty Jenkins said she imagined you in the
role after watching you on TV in THE DEVIL's ADVOCATE.
But to most people you're far too beautiful to be
playing this terrible character. Has your appearance
at times been a liability as an actress?
THERON: Hollywood is all about make-believe. But
somehow, nobody has any clue how to imagine what
somebody could look like if they went through the
transformation. For some reason we have to walk into
the room and be the person already.
Beauty may not be a liability — but it will only get
you so far. I hope that the physical aspect of it
would not be that important, where other directors
will take chances the way Patty (director Jenkins) did
with me.
She said, `I don't see that woman. I see something
else. I don't just see the woman walking down the red
carpet in the gown. I can see her through this.
I've been frustrated at times with the roles I've
played and this was my chance of breaking free from a
certain image Hollywood has had of me. I'm glad that
Patty gave me this chance.
Q: Did taking on Wuornos' physical appearance help
you get into the character's head more?
THERON: Yes, it did. In rehearsal, everything felt
wrong until I put on the pants and the moccasins and
the shirt and the teeth. My greatest fear is that we
wouldn't get close to who she really was. When I saw
myself in the mirror the first time, I was really
pleased. It wasn't about prosthetics or the weight
thing. It's not like Patty said, 'I want you to gain
30 pounds.'
Everything about Aileen Wuornos came from her
emotional journey. The way she puffed herself up and
threw her head back -- that's not Aileen being weird.
That's the homeless Aileen, that's survival.
The way she felt about her body ... you know, she had
a child when she was 13. She wrote in her letters that
even though she was a prostitute, she never took her
shirt off. When she was arrested and you saw her body,
you could see this was a woman who had just been
trying to survive. It wasn't about getting fat. Her
body was the map to her journey.
Q: What was your favorite pig out food when you were
gaining weight?
THERON: I first began stuffing myself with Krispy
Kreme doughnuts but after a while I got sick of them.
I love potato chips, so that was a good thing for me.
I’m a salty girl so I had my secret stash with me of
potato chips at all times.
Basically you eat all the junk that you really want to
eat for the first few months but after a while that
get's boring. But I never got tired of potato chips.
I could live off potato chips! (Laughs)
Q: How hard was it to get back in shape when it was
over?
THERON: It’s tough. It’s not as much fun as actually
gaining it. but I had to go straight into another film
so I had no choice but to train hard and go on a
strict diet. I had about 10 days off before I had to
go to Montreal to start HEAD IN THE CLOUDS and then we
had a three week rehearsal period before we actually
started shooting.
In a way, I think it was really helpful for me to work
on another project so that I could mentally get over
Aileen and let her go. Because I had to discipline
myself immediately towards another focus.
And the same with losing the weight, I just didn’t
have a choice in the matter, so I had to go straight
into it and just do it. So I think it was both
physically and mentally cleansing for me to get rid of
everything I had taken on to do MONSTER.
Q: How did your boyfriend Stuart Townshend react to
your weight gain?
THERON: (Laughs) He loved it. He liked my bigger
boobs. But beyond that, he was tremedously supportive
of me while we were shooting. Playing this character
took me to a lot of dark places and I would depend on
late-night phone calls with Stuart to keep me from
going crazy.
Q: How did they create the freckles you wear as
Wuornos?
THERON: We had an incredible makeup artist named Toni
G, who was actually on Pirates of the Caribbean. I had
met her through Rick Baker who I had worked with years
ago on Mighty Joe Young and we knew it was a long shot
to get her, but she actually very gracefully stepped
out of that movie and came and did this with us. Our
budget for the film ($8 million) was basically just
enough to get us through 28 shooting days and we
really had nothing to spare.
The greatest thing Toni did was to change my face
without prosthetics and without making people stare at
the makeup. That was what my greatest fear was - I
didn’t want to do the caricature, wear a fat suit, put
some prosthetics on my face. I think in a way, not
having the money to do that first of all, or the time
to do it, all of those negative things that you think
are negative in the beginning were the things that
really helped us at the end of the day.
And I’m highly critical of these things. When I watch
the movie, I feel so satisfied that it’s not a makeup
job and you don’t see makeup. Maybe that’s just me,
but I’m very proud of that.
Q: Do you think Aileen was crazy?
THERON: No, I think saying that she was crazy is one
of the easiest labels and I think we throw that so
easily around to anybody who does something out of the
ordinary or something horrible.
We tend to just go, “Oh, they’re just crazy” or “she's
a psychopath.” Aileen did terrible things, horrendous
things, things that I think are unforgivable. Those
are the facts about her life. Those are the things we
really know. But on the other hand, we don’t quite
know because she’s not around anymore and the victims
are not around anymore.
So nobody will really ever know what happened those
nights that those things were happening. We really
wanted to make this movie as honestly and openly as
possible and gain some insight into who she was. She
had already been painted as a monster in the media. So
for us to make a movie just about the sympathetic or
the empathetic side of this character would’ve been
the exact same mistake as people had already made with
her. And so the scale had to always be evened out.
Q: Did you and the director work hard to avoid being
either too sympathetic to her or too clichéd?
THERON: There was a certain amount of concern to make
Aileen a more sympathetic character. But it was out of
the question for me. I would rather have just made
another film.
We never wanted to make a big statement or be
melodramatic. We didn’t want to hit people over the
head with the sympathetic hammer, or make people feel
sorry for her. Still, I felt that within the greater
truth of her life, even though she killed people and
caused great pain to so many people, through all the
bad things that she had done, that her life is not as
black and white as people tend to want to make it.
There’s a lot of gray areas in her life and through
those gray areas, you find some empathy for her.
Q: How was it working with Christina Ricci. You had
some difficult scenes with her?
THERON: Christina was great. We were great pals on
the set and we laughed all the time about our sex
scene. It was the first time that I had ever kissed a
woman in a film, and it was OK kissing Christina
except for the dental implants which would sometimes
come loose.
Q: You spoke about your initial doubts that you would
be able to pull of the role. Did you become more
confident as shooting progressed?
THERON: No, never. I was always worried that I was
missing something and that I wasn't doing justice to
the role. I'm not sure why I felt that way. I think
Aileen was such a strange and tormented figure that
there will always be certain aspects of her
personality which we can never completely understand.
There was a lot of pain and anger and desperation
which I wasn't sure I was getting across because those
things can only come out in fragments.
I even had a dream towards the end of the shoot where
I dreamt that a specific actor was replacing me. So
that tells you that I never felt I knew what I was
doing. I relied a lot on instinct.
Q: Was it difficult for you to do nudity in this film
when you're not in the kind of shape audiences might
expect of you?
THERON: Even though it might sound lame and clichéd,
emotional nakedness is much harder for me to do than
taking my clothes off. I'm very comfortable with my
body. I was a ballerina for 12 years and your body is
just an instrument and you use it. It was much more
terrifying for me to go to those dark psychological
spaces in Aileen's head. It was by far the hardest
thing I've ever had to do as an actor.
Q: Your own life has had its share of tragedy. You've
been quite open about how your mother killed your
father in self-defence when you were growing up in
South Africa. What did your mother think about your
playing this character?
THERON: I showed her the script and she didn't think
twice about it. I didn't draw any parallels. Aileen
had her own story and the film tries to deal with her
life honestly.
Q: Does going through a tragedy and experience like
that make you better able to stand on your own?
THERON: My mother has always been like that and I've
gained so much in life from having grown up with her
as my best friend. She's an incredible woman.
Q: Is it cathartic at all to play a difficult
character like Wuornos and relive her nightmarish kind
of life?
THERON: Yes. I don't know how to play other people's
emotions. I only know how to substitute my emotions.
It's how I was taught as an actor. I don't know if I
can do a movie unless I really do tap into something
emotional with (the character).
So it does become very cathartic, in a great way,
because you have to go and turn on some lights in some
very dark rooms. But that's the only way I know how to
work as an actor. It's very freeing. I think that's
why a lot of people do therapy. I've never been to
therapy because I really feel like my acting is that
for me.
______________________
EXTRA QUESTION ABOUT THERON AND RATS IN HER HOUSE
Q: How are you adjusting to your new house in the
Hollywood Hills?
THERON: Everything's fine except for the rats. But my
beautiful Great Dane Orson has become the official
house rat catcher. Orson is like a cat. He catches
rats like nobody's business! He catches rats while
he's on a leash. You've never seen anything like it!
He'll just be walking, and he kind of looks like an
alien a little bit. His ears will go up and he'll just
dive his head into a bush and pull out a rat. It's
insane. I scream, the rat screams, it's a mess!
I have tons of rats. At night I'll take a bath and
they'll be having a party and you hear the music. It's
crazy! That's the price you pay when you live in
nature, so it's fine. Orson takes care of it.
_____________________
