Conversations with Charlize Theron

good afternoon my name is Janel Riley I'm an editor at variety I am so so thrilled to welcome you to this egg after a foundation conversation with the one and only Charlize Theron since her breakthrough in movies like that thing you do in two days in the valley this is an actress and producer who is always compelling to watch and continues to make bold fascinating choices along the way she has worked with some of the best directors and actors in the business and earned several accolades including the Silver Bear award from the Berlin Film Festival a SAG Award a Golden Globe Award and of course an Academy Award for Best Actress in a motion picture please welcome to Charlize Theron hi hi hi thank you for that Wow this is where it's not I have a feeling wherever you are is where it's at so oh no that's not true thank you so much for being here congratulations on another great movie they just watched totally this is an audit shirt this is an audience of SAG actors so I always like to start by asking how did you get your sag card I got it making a pilot that never aired no way yeah what whoever created that pilot and didn't pick it up must be so angry right now they didn't pick it up but I think they've released it as a movie like years later which was weird because it's just a pilot what was it called Hollywood confidential I think they did release this movie yes yes residuals on that or I think I got two and a half no I I played yeah I played a undercover detective which made a lot of sense with my platinum blonde hair that I had at the time and were you were probably like 18 or 19 when your shelves 19 yeah Wow so one of those doogie howser detectives who like this super advanced for their age well here we are today and I actually want to start at the beginning because you famously were born and grew up in South Africa I mean that's got to be as far from Hollywood as one can imagine how did you end up here I know it's crazy well it's it's really crazy because my my parents could not be more removed from anything about this industry my both my parents built roads in South Africa so do you want me to go through the story because that is such a crazy oh Jesus okay so when I was 16 I left I was a I knew nothing about acting till way later in my and my life late I was nine 18 17 18 yes a lot later but I was a ballerina and I danced for most of my life from the time that I was like four years old and I thought that was what I was going to do for the rest of my life and I left at 16 and kind of studied abroad and did modeling as a waitressing job and that's how I kind of supported myself but I went and studied ballet everywhere I went and then I ended in New York and I realized that my career was over I had my knees had just kind of like said goodbye to me and it all kind of tumbled on me that this was going to be gone and I had never thought of a plan B and so my mom came out it was December it was freezing I was living in a basement with no windows eating you know as enough haagen-dazs for a nation and my mom so naively this you know woman who's just built roads in Africa all her life has never been to New York said you can be depressed in South Africa or you can be depressed here but we can't afford that so you have to either get on a plane and come home or you have to like do something about this and I was like well I don't know what to do and she said to me three o'clock in the morning you love telling stories she's like you were never the best service like one of those honest moments and mom had with her daughters she's like you were never the best ballerina technically there were a lot of other girls way better than you she's like but you when you were the dying's on you were the dying Swan she's like that's your strong point and it sounds so ridiculous but she was like you know I hear they make those movies in LA and in Hollywood you should go and she very famously said you don't want to be 80 and on your deathbed and wonder what it could have been and boy was she right so I owe her a lot that's amazing I've never heard a story where the parrot encouraged the child to be an actress usually they sort of fear that tiny bit better than hitting me off to prostitution just a tiny bit better yeah but but you know my mom has this I don't know how she's hung on to it too cause she's in her 60s now and she has that thing that I think we lose the older we get she's just gotten more of it which you know sometimes gonna be very reckless but it's also living your life to the fullest and really kind of thinking so outside the box and thinking of all kind of possibilities and I'm so grateful to have that a little bit of that craziness in my life because I'm not naturally like that so it's good to have a wild child like that in the family the wild mother is the wild child and then did you both come out to LA together I think you know no I came out by myself she she bought me a one-way ticket she's like if it doesn't work out you're not coming back to New York you're coming back home so and she gave me $300 and I had a couple of checks coming in from New York but they were out-of-state checks and because I didn't have an account here and I was an American I couldn't cash them and so that's how that whole other story of how I found my manager happened that's true yeah I was okay because for those of you who don't know you you hear these stories about like Lana Turner discovered at Schwab's you were discovered in a bank I was at Bank I know it's worse a bank on Hollywood Boulevard not there anymore they tore it down but I know weirdly live and have lived for the last 24 years in the same house that's a minute away from that bank so that kind of brings tears because it's just so crazy that my life has turned out this way it's I'm super grateful so what happened in this Bank exactly I mean I don't believe anything I've ever saw it's a mess yeah I love how people write about it it sounds like I totally like busted a lid but really what happened was I was just so desperate because I had I ran out of money you know I had been here for a while and I $300 and I remember I was staying at the farmer's daughter motel which back then was a rented by the our motel it was not the cute quaint little place that it is today with that nice restaurant and I had to pay that night and I had absolutely no money and they wouldn't cash this check from New York and it was just out of pure desperation that I wouldn't leave this teller and I did I think it did start crying because I was like I'm homeless like I and this guy stepped in and he was very kind and kind of helped something I don't know he like cashed it through his bank and his account and then gave me the cash and and then said are you an actor because I'm a manager and I was like this is great I mean he discovered and I my friend drove me to the bank and she was waiting in her car and I got in the car and I and she was like trying to be an actor too and she's like I said I was just discovered and and she's like she's like calm down everybody in in Holly on Hollywood Boulevard is a manager so calm down and so I I actually I thought she was right I didn't do anything and the card stayed in the car and one night we were going out and somebody saw the card and knew who he was this was before the times that you could Google somebody so it turned out he was a legit manager and and that's where my career started that's amazing and now you can't even go into banks so all these people are missing a nose you can cause a scene I guess at the ATM but it's probably not the same and what sort of roles were you going out for in those early days I mean were you were you good at auditioning no I'm terrible at auditioning even now yeah well I'm - I'm terrible and every director who who's ever loved me sincerely have shared that very honestly with me Charlize I love you but you're terrible at auditioning I I think it's also just because I didn't know what auditioning meant you know so not having the knowledge of what was expected of me I just kind of like imagined in my head what an audition should look like and it was crazy but again that craziness is I think what kind of got people's attention but you know that's the fourth audition that I went on was for two days in the valley and I walked in with like a bottle of ketchup because I had to do a scene where I got shot and I like squirt it ketchup all over me and I mean it was not pretty it was a lot I think people just felt so uncomfortable in the room with me that they didn't quite know if they should call the police or give me the role you know it's like one of those situations because two days in the valley was a huge break I mean I I remember I think I just moved to Los Angeles that year and there we had these commercials of you camp fighting with Teri Hatcher and and that was the same year you Tom Hanks cast you and that thing you do did you notice you know suddenly you're working with Tom Hanks I mean I'm I have several restraining orders out from him from probably Rita just because he my whole career I've always talked very honestly about just how much he kind of meant his movies were very influential for me I I watched everything that he was in I loved him as an actor I had no idea that he was a celebrity because where I grew up was so isolated and we had no reading material on actors so I didn't know they were famous I just thought they were regular people who had this cool job and so when I found out he was famous it was like you know I was like you're the Messiah like and I need to follow you everywhere now but it was so strange that he of all people because I had such an affinity for him and that he at that time decided to make his first film and that I happened to be here and got to audition for him I mean again terrible terrible audition I think in the middle of the audition he stopped and said this just take a break just take a break and that's never a good sign I mean I imagine it's been a long time since you did audition do you remember your last audition maybe you blocked it for well I mean I I just recently had to like do a voice audition so no it doesn't stop I think you you know I I'm definitely not snooty about it I mean I just hate it I know I'm terrible at it here's this thing here's why I'm terrible at it I'm terrible at it because I I don't like imagining him driving in a car like I feel stupid doing I just feel really stupid doing that and so those things kind of like are so in my head when I'm auditioning that I kind of laugh at myself and like yep driving a car [Laughter] I'd be like you know II just go to the parking lot and maybe do this scene in an actual car like I always struggled with that so that's why I'm terrible perfect sense to me actually although that was nice space work I have to say yes I would have given you the part I mean those were two such different roles to and to such different movies did everything change after that or is that kind of a myth no I mean the thing that I really struggled with and what kind of ended the relationship with the manager that I had at the time in between all of that when I met him I the first audition I ever went to or the second audition ever went to was for showgirls and Joanna ray amazing casting director was I don't saw something in me I know again I don't know why cuz I was like pretending to like dance on a pole that wasn't there and I wouldn't know why she thought that but she did and god bless her for that she called Jay Jay Harris who was a partner at UTA at the time and said I just saw this girl and she doesn't have an agent and she's with this manager but I think you should meet her and so she set up this meeting for me and I met Jay Jay Harris who I don't know if any of you know she's passed since but she became the biggest mentor in my life and I'm getting a little emotional I'm sorry she changed my career I'm sorry no no no please I'm no one talks that way about their agent I think it's beautiful it's not expecting that but she did she really you know and especially the fact that she was a woman and I had kind of come from this modeling industry where like somebody like that should not be taken seriously as an actor and especially not 25 years ago there was like no there was nobody to kind of look at Rene Russo it was kind of an actor that I looked at in a sense but other than that I felt like a lot of people just looked at me like I was a joke and she saw something in me and honed in on it and believed in me and more than that she was the reason why I started getting to like slowly I mean we had to work towards and she worked really hard to kind of find those opportunities for me but because of her belief I ended up meeting interesting filmmakers like James Gray and lost a Holstrom and she knew about stuff up in advance and kind of like stayed on people and really like forced me into rooms and believed in me in a way that nobody I mean it just doesn't make any sense I had a terrible accent I couldn't audition and for some reason she just really really believed in me and so it's why I severed the relationship with the manager because there was a time where I realized after two days in the valley I was getting a lot of roles just like that and people would literally say just we want her to do what she did and not and even though I had no knowledge of the industry just knew that I didn't I wanted to explore real people and I wanted to I saw all the potential in it but I just didn't know how I was gonna fit into what that looked like and JJ really helped guide me into finding a career that ended up being exactly what I wanted and I know how rare that is and see how very quickly I could have just become you know a Helga and three other movies in the disappeared it was the character in today's in the mouth I was just gonna say I don't know if there was a South African thing or you it was that character there like we just want her to do that again and I knew I knew that that could very easily happen and so she she found the Tom Hanks thing and and kind of slowly just built out a career that finally allowed me to show different things that I was interested in I mean from the beginning you were working with some amazing people one of your first movies was devil's advocate with Al Pacino I mean again is are you still a part of you that is like stunned to be honest that was someone like Al Pacino yeah I mean I had those moments all the time I said they still haven't gone away from me I still think I'm gonna get fired like I like on every job I'm like this is it this is the one I get fired on and I still have moments where I'm like you know I just did this film with Seth Rogen and I totally nerd it out I was like I'm movie was that Rogen like I would have ever thought that was gonna happen that's funny because you know he's going home and going I'm doing a movie with Charlize I don't know if he's pretty cool ya know yeah I definitely I've never lost that excitement of and and and the gratefulness of getting to work with the people that I've been able to work with that's never gone away from me you mentioned The Cider House Rules which was with lasse hallström and won an Academy Award and like I said you've been doing a lot of good work up until then and in some big movies but I think that there is a difference when it's a period piece and you know it wins Academy Awards and did you find the industry treating you differently after that no cuz I wasn't nominated I mean the film got a lot of attention but I know I can't say that that you know up until I was I was in great movies that were critically acclaimed Bulls not all of them but some of them with directors that were really talked about but I was essentially playing the girlfriend or the wife and I think when you kind of get stuck in that and there's not a lot of other opportunities where you can actually break away from that it's really hard to kind of grab attention to grab like have people kind of take notice and I did realize that for like the first ten years of my career it was like oh how do I make this wife interesting how do I make this girlfriend interesting and you know then you'll come up with all of this stuff that some director is like just kind of placating you and going like yeah we'll definitely do that and then you realize you're really you are just the girlfriend that is what you're there to do so I I don't feel like anything really change I was working solidly I was working on good movies but as it as an actor I didn't feel like I was being really challenged up until I did monster I mean obviously we have to talk about monster 2003 was actually a great year for you because you were in the Italian Job which is a really wonderful blockbuster movie it's such a great movie I loved making that film I loved all of those guys and I love those kind of movies like I love you know I think back then there was this kind of snobbery like those are those movies and then these are the good movies and I think that's gone away and I'm really happy about that because I feel like if we're all honest with ourselves we know that we go and enjoy those movies just as much and you kind of appreciate them for what they are and there's nothing wrong with that and I love that that kind of snobbery is left because that wasn't the case when I started out mm-hmm no it's actually a really smart movie and I feel like they've been talking about a sequel for 50 we're gonna happen it's never gonna happen ever gonna happen darn it home and then obviously you follow that up with monster in which you played serial killer are we allowed to say serial killer Aileen Wuornos because I don't know if I consider her a serial killer yeah it's more complicated than that yeah there's there's different theories on what whether she really was a serial killer I do think she is because she did have several murders and so for that reason I talked about her apparently my Stamper very strict her motives were different than a lot of other serial killers yeah well in some cases it was self-defense I feel the first time I believe was there's a lot of evidence that we found that helped us be able to feel comfortable and kind of telling that greater truth of that story because obviously we don't know everything but I think the first the first guy that she killed I think was he had just been released from a 10-year sentence for aggravated rape and assault and had heard a lot of women and there was a record and there we know that the the tape and the plastic and all of the stuff in the back of his car was actually belong to him and so we knew that he was he was not a good guy how did that project find its way to you and I mean was there any trepidation about like can I do this so now you'll understand well maybe okay you either get it or you don't but JJ Harris read I think 15 pages of she received the script in the morning she was going to come and have lunch with me while I was shooting Italian Job and she read 15 pages and she came to see me and we had lunch and she said I just read 15 pages of the script and you have to do it it's unbelievable so she sent me this was it the script first no yeah she send me the script first but because I was working it's hard for me to read while I'm working and then she said you should watch the documentary and I felt like that was easier I watched the documentary while I'm in my trailer and I just remember like 10 minutes into the documentary and I was like is she on crack like what is she thinking like this is so crazy and then she said what did you think and I said it's insane and she's like you have to read the script and then I read the script and it scared the out of me it really because I realized that Patti who wrote and wrote it and then directed it was not gonna there was gonna be no she was gonna do all of it and that's a big thing to bite off as an actor and I felt like her passion and energy that she and time and commitment that she had put into it to that up for her would be so unfair to so I was very I didn't know how to do it if I couldn't find a place where I could feel and look like her a little bit and so I think instead of like kind of again it's like we always want the challenge and then the challenge comes and we're like no I I don't know oh not this kind of challenge like a different kind of challenge and then sometimes you need a JJ Harris or a patty Jenkins to kind of sit you down and you know set your ass straight and they both luckily didn't give up on me patty especially I mean JJ kept telling her you have to talk to you have to talk to you have to talk to her and I met her over like a month like several times and she just wouldn't let up and then eventually I think I said yes just because I was so touched that somebody believed that much in me that I was like God for that reason I'm saying yes but I still don't know how I'm gonna do this and then we just started working and she was really a partner in crime and we held hands and jumped off a very very high cliff and I'm really glad she came into my life very happy for that I know a lot has been made about the physical transformation you underwent I believe you gained 30 pounds there was prosthetics but I'm really fascinated by the mental preparation for a role like that because maybe I'm wrong but I don't think that's something you leave behind at the end of a shoot day I mean was it a tough place to be I was shooting another movie five days after I wrap that film was it a period piece called a head in the clouds right after yeah I basically like I went on a treadmill for five days and starved myself and try to squeeze into like a Parisian gown but ya know I mean here's the thing I've never had an issue leaving stuff behind and I have found going right into something else sometimes helps it makes it a little easier because you're almost forced to have to you can't waddle you know you can't kind of live in that misery or that pain or any about stuff you were kind of it's like somebody gives you a schedule and you just have to keep moving forward and it's actually really helpful for me but I also was so unbelievably exhausted by the end of that film that I was I wanted it to be over because it was just like it was like being water it's like being on a being waterboarded and just felt like please stop this now like so I was very happy to wrap that movie very happy I remember we wrapped like 6:00 a.m. after like what felt like a 37 day shoot with no sleep and I was very happy to happen to walk away from that and obviously for that movie you won they had to make up new awards to give you at that point because you won everything including the Academy Award and again was that a big change in your career or were you kind of surprised that maybe it wasn't no that was definitely yeah that was a game changer and it was not necessarily all for the positive because it's one of those moments where you can't believe this is happening to you and it's amazing and then it happens and then afterwards you're kind of inundated with offers and I had not had that kind of career you know I'd get an offer and and like one a year maybe two a year and they tended to be the things that I ended up doing or I would audition and chase something and kind of go after that I had never kind of been in that position where everything was kind of just handed to me and then I you know I would read stuff and I wouldn't emotionally connect to things and then people would say things like no but like paramount is gonna make this mean this is gonna be great man and I was like I started feeling a lot of pressure and I started not not trusting my own gut anymore and that's how young flux happened so that's how you pronounce it I've always wondered I know I don't even think that's how you pronounce I think you know yeah no it is the unflexible bugs and yeah it's young yeah it's like guess myself yeah it was one of those moments you know I remember JJ was again very helpful because I really wanted to go make North Country which I did and that was the movie that I really wanted to go and make and JJ was like well we'll figure out and you can do both and like things like that started happening and I was like this is not me anymore like now I'm feeling like I'm being pulled into so many directions and that happened for like a year and then I just kind of sat everybody down and I was like I can't do this like I just I can't feel this way about my work it's too stressful I don't if I can't enjoy it I don't really want to do this like I've had a career up to then where I was really enjoying it I felt empowered I felt like my my decisions were mine and I was kind of making my career mine and owning that and and then all of a sudden it was a little bit like all of that disappeared and I just didn't like it mm-hmm I meant to ask was panic again by the way like what great problems to have I'm like bitching about having all these opportunities given today I just I just literally in a boat I was like did I just say that but they really grateful but it was a little overwhelming yeah she's so hard it was really hard it was a hard moment in my life you're being humble but it is hard I making it working in a mine is hard house in perspective would you wait lady sorry yes I'm back I'm back I'm back I'm back I was curious about patty Jenkins oh because was that the first time you worked with a female director yes yours got very excited okay super yeah no that was the first time yeah which is just crazy when you think about it because I'd been working for quite a while but then any rapid succession you worked with Nikki is it Carol or Caro Caro and Karan Kazan on a he's on my own I am bad with these Priya hi patty Jenkins Thank You Nikki Caro and Karyn Kusama I was so proud I got the car in part right because I was thought it was Karen and I butchered the last name and great and I mean I don't know if that if you were intentionally seeking out female directors it was just like kind of a happy coincidence because they were very rare it was a happy coincidence it was a great year in our industry where all three of those women were making incredible films it's sad that it was only three of them but and there was a few others and we're not talking about right now but because it doesn't involve me but um no it was a great moment to be able to work back-to-back like that with three amazing women I mean I mean I don't mean to be reductive about it but but do you notice a difference on sets what it is a female filmmaker I here's what I noticed I just noticed that when it's the right filmmaker it's pretty amazing and so I don't want to I have a and my experience I've never had that feeling of like oh it's because it's a woman patty Jenkins was unbelievable because she was meant to tell that story and I don't think anybody else and that's not just a male/female thing really understood Eileen the way that she did she was meant to tell that story and I feel the same about Nikki and Karan - I feel like what you realize once you work with female directors and great ones said we're all meant to be telling stories and that's where diversity comes in - you know we need in order to tell assenting diverse stories we need we need those kind of people to tell those stories and we're lacking in that and that's what I realize that that realized very much at that time in Mike is that around the time you got into producing as well is that one of the reasons it was a monster it was because I was so scared of the project and I think my biggest fear and the biggest reason why I couldn't just say yes to it was because and I touched upon it a little bit before this idea of bringing more to enrich a character you know but like can I do this with this wife can I do can we do this this would be interesting and then having somebody kind of like smile at you and condescendingly thinking this is never gonna happen and then it doesn't and so my fear was that if I was gonna put myself out there and take a risk like that I didn't want to be at that mercy again of like somebody like just saying they're gonna do all this stuff and saying they're gonna and then them not doing it and JJ said you should produce it you should have some control over it and you should protect yourself in a way where if that's what you're gonna go and do that that's protected and so I was you know I had a deal in place that really protected me on what the final cut was and what the film would be and there were a lot of things that you know we couldn't find a distributor up until the last day that we needed a distributor we were about to sign a deal with blockbuster when we had negotiated this deal because we couldn't find a distributor and we had negotiated this deal with blockbuster straight-to-video deal and we were our lawyers were bringing it to the editing room for Patty and I to sign and an hour before the paperwork came somebody said Bob Burnie just called from new line and Mel Gibson's movie that he was going to put out passion of the christ' decided to go into reshoots and they were going to push the movie for another eight months and so he had a slot open and it literally happened within a two-hour span that's amazing whatever happened to that Mel Gibson movie doesn't seem like it anymore went anywhere can google it I know you have your own production company is a Denver in Delilah films is it true that's named after your dogs I love that what kind of dogs they were cocker spaniels they have since passed but I am my company after them because something weird happened where up until that point I was living out of a suitcase for four years that literally were being held together with hair bobby pins like the sides were like bobby pins glued together because a zipper had broken but my life was that of a gypsy and I just would pack up and go and pack up and go and white was in LA for like a month and I saw this sign and I walked into this house and there were these little puppies and I left with a puppy and I was like what am I thinking I have a suitcase with bobby pins holding it together I don't have you know anything keeping me here why am i doing this and then a month later I got another one and I was like what is wrong with me and I and I you know I'm not like a hokey person at all I'm super cynical and cold but uh I believe that these dogs knew something they knew I was gonna stay here for awhile and so I did I named the company after them because I felt like they knew more than I did at that time wow that's amazing and I was I didn't realize you know you also do projects that you don't appear in your producer online hunter yeah that's amazing and girlboss as well that's so um so this is not just like an in name only take a producer credit no wait no I think a good 30% of what we've now probably more 40% of what we produce is not anything that I'm acting in on any level yeah that's and you're not necessarily always a producer on your movies no yeah I I wanted I'm sorry I jumped around because I wanted to go back to north country because I love this movie so much and it is weirdly timely or than ever all these years later your plane's someone based on a real character sort of like in Monster although obviously you couldn't meet Eileen when you do something like that um is there an extra responsibility you feel in portraying a real person yeah I mean I felt it for Eileen as well I didn't I feel you I think the the biggest thing for me personally is just I don't want to I don't want to tell the story that's not you know again the human condition is always about greater truth and we're never going to know the facts about everything but you can really kind of work towards that and so it's not so much as I want to let somebody down I just I just want to be able to know that that we walked towards the truth as much as we possibly could and whether that's pretty or not so pretty that at least we stayed on that road and it didn't become or have any agenda or anything on its sleeve like those are the things that I think I worry about the most like I don't want to get political I don't want to get I don't want to get messaging I just it's about the human being and the human spirit and those flaws and those mistakes those are the things that I'm the most interested in and so you know Louis was an interesting character to a person too that's the character that I play in North Country because she I met her for maybe 20 minutes she came to the set she's her life has had a real effect on her and she you know she's not she's at a place in her in her life where she doesn't necessarily want to like sit down and share all of his stuff and it's probably not the best thing for her to do that so we had to rely on Michael Seitz been doing a lot of research and and finding that information for us and most of the time I think when I play real people I haven't necessarily had access to the person and I think it's a good thing because I can imagine if somebody was telling my life story I'd be like listen this is what really happened it wasn't that I was drunk it and I didn't do that like you know I just I see I think we kind of edit our lives in a way that is maybe not necessarily seeing it from 30,000 feet in the air and sometimes I think you need that outside perspective of people around you kind of telling your story I just I I I've definitely found that helpful and I also then I feel like if somebody tells you like listen I wasn't drunk and then you go and you're like no I think you were drunk and then you do it and it's like then it's just the feels weird right so I tried to eliminate that middle part of it I mean it could change I could it could happen with somebody else where I would want to I would want to meet I don't know I don't know it could change but it hasn't so far from me and you prayed Brit Elkin it so bad with last names you played Peter Sellers his wife Brit speaking of drunk someone caught on finally and that's like when you're playing somebody that iconic I mean that's you gotta walk a line between sort of imitation because she's she's very famous for her look and her voice but also creating your own character yeah that's like that was weirdly like I asked her and she's so sweet I asked her to come to the Cannes screening with me and I gotta meet her yeah well I met her after all and so she they flew her out to Cannon and I got to meet her and I said will you be my date like come with me tonight and so she watched the movie for the first time sitting next to me which was a horrible mistake I mean I can't imagine anything worse you know and she was super super gracious afterwards but you could tell that she was a little bit like okay but she was so sweet but I will never do that to somebody ever again ever if they don't ever see me that's a good thing yeah that's just weird two movies of recent movies I want to touch on real quickly before we get to Thole are obviously Mad Max fury road and atomic blonde not just because they're two of my favorite movies and you kick so much ass in them literally and figuratively home but did you imagine becoming like an action icon at this point in your career no I never imagined anything and and again this I didn't even imagine I was hopeful I was like if this happens I'd be really happy if I could support myself only acting and not having to have a second job that was the dream literally that was the dream I was like if I don't have to have a second job and I can like pay my rent boy will I be happy so everything else has been like what the yeah I know never but again I mean like I said earlier I've always loved those movies I've always loved I loved the original Mad Max films like I grew up on them like they're very popular in South Africa and so you know they just when I heard him I was like yes I mean what can I just be like a sidekick like I would love to be in a Mad Max movie so you know it's I've always loved those movies it was like a later discovery for me mm-hmm and it's nice that actors now can kind of do everything and not be judged for it or thought of as like not serious or not a good enough actor to do stuff like that Mad Max won like several Oscars yeah I mean I love that idiot I personally think George Miller is a is a genius I just you know I I think he's just one of those people that have raised the bar to a level that we could only hope to get close to I think he's just an unbelievable filmmaker he's just one of you yeah that is just ridiculously stupidly talented have you guys talked about I'm just gonna keep asking you about sequels have you because I know that there's been talk of a sequel to that one as well so when he developed fury road he wrote the other two films and so they were all written before we even showed up and I think he did them for a backstory because they kind of play as each of both characters backstories but I don't really know what's going on you know I don't you know there's some stuff happening right now that might make it a little bit more difficult but I don't really know the details of it I know that if George called me tomorrow I would I would be you know what time and when do we show up but other than that I don't know if anything's really moving on it but I know the scripts are there I mean there's such great characters in such great movies but and there's so much fun for us but I have to imagine they're all so hard to do they look exhausting okay but being in a desert driving a truck with one arm it was a hard movie it was I think for all of us yeah everybody and that's you know the entire crew it was logistical II a hard movie to make it also like the lead up to it was we we were on that thing for like four years before it actually even got made so our lives were kind of dedicated to this thing that just we just couldn't get it going we were in Australia like two weeks away from shooting and then they pulled production and it was it was just I think it kind of grinded down on all of us yeah by the time we actually ended up making it it it was tough it was really tough again when we wrapped that one I was ready to get the out of there I remember I remember you know Mike my kid my first baby was a baby I left Jackson was like four months Wow so it was a new mom on top of it too and I was just in a desert like we all started calling it like a dirty ashtray we felt like we were just working in a dirty ashtray every single day it was a hard movie because it was the physical to maintain your body at that level physically is really really hard we shot for over six months seven months and it's hard to work long hours have a young child and then have to maintain your neck and your upper body like a football player it's really hard it's like things like that I think people don't realize like when you have all the time in the world it's super easy but when you're actually making a film and you realize your body is gonna not maintain and the mental part of it and just staying in that world again being consistent with what the character is going through and not having things like a script and not knowing what you were shooting like when we had call sheets with no scenes on them like it was like you show up in the morning they'd be like there's four units shooting where do you want to go and I was like really you're asking me I don't know but it's a process that works for George and you just had to kind of surrender to it and that was hard it was really hard maybe next time he can put you in one of the babe sequels because I can't get over at the guy who Mad Max we don't hosted baby big in the city no and he doesn't need bacon because of that are you serious that's so sweet really sweet I try to like give him a bite of my salad with bacon and or something he's like I can't he's the sweetest guy in the whole world and then I felt like such a dick I was like I can't believe I just offered him bacon so that brings us to Thole and I know you previously collaborated with director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody in young adults another movie I absolutely love about a very complicated character were you guys looking to collaborate again since then yeah yeah we definitely Jason and I stayed in touch with each other and Diablo and and you know you say that like sometimes you get out you really should do this again it just never happens again and Jason and I became friends and he you know I really have him to thank and yeah because she ended up coming up with the idea and pitching it and and saying maybe this is something we could do together again and I'm super grateful that they're actually they actually got off their asses and did it because that doesn't usually happen but the three of us just loved working with each other yeah yeah I was kind of hoping Patton Oswalt would be your husband because you guys yeah I mean Patton is like Oh deep in my heart and love that guy you're they said such great chemistry and young-adult it's kind of amazing Jason has this real talent for casting yeah it's really crazy and I felt the same thing with Mackenzie like he just really knew the two of us would be perfect and I don't know how he does it but he he is yet to get it wrong with me every actor he's ever placed me with has just been like wow like this person is making me so much better than I could ever be in this room alone I was so curious about that with Mackenzie cuz this may sound strange but did you do a chemistry read or did he just no no I think he read with her yeah I think she auditioned for something I don't know what but I think she auditioned for something of his earlier like another movie and I only found that out when we were doing the press drunken she kind of like threw him a little side dagger she's like well I didn't do that get that role but I think she remembered her and he did not mention the same was patent he didn't mention anybody else except those two people for those roles young so was it kind of written with you in mind if Diablo came up with this idea is it it was yeah not young adult but Tully where I am wow that's that's so flattering but then also I'm it's again it's somebody again I just realized I should probably not say that cuz I don't know that for a fact but I think so yeah I think so well I mean it's sort of like I don't know fur but I think so they knew you could rise to the challenge because it is it's a really complicated role in again and we could talk about the physical because I think you put on 50 pounds for this movie but again the mental headspace that you're going through in this and I know you became a mother just six years ago I mean do you think you could have played this role 10 years ago yeah but I think it would have been different I mean I don't think it's impossible I don't think you have to be a heroin addict to play a heroin addict but I do think there was a nice gift that came with that this script came to me four months after my second baby came to me and so I was literally in the throes of a four year old at the time needing of a mom and and me just not being a mom because I was so exhausted from having the second one and so he literally was reading the script and I was like oh my god and so again it was like a serendipitous that it just kind of showed up at that time and it Idaho it all happened really really found I think Diablo wrote the script in six weeks that was the draft we shot we were shooting it I think five three months later it was five months later was done it was crazy it's so weird to think that like a year ago this didn't exist yeah I mean and was it a tough shoot because again you're going to places that I can't imagine are fun to be but you're with great people yeah I had a really really hard time on the show I wasn't prepared for I didn't experience this on Monster and I think I don't know why maybe it's just because I'm older but I experience depression for the first time in my life and I think it was from just how I was eating and the amount of sugar because every time I've gained weight it's like that the first month you're just like I get to eat everything I love which is like pizza and pasta and bread and like that's my thing and then I plateaued and somebody the devil told me about sugar [Laughter] and I started hitting the cokes and it was just like a dark tunnel mm-hmm and I had you know I was working with four kids on set and then I go home to my own kids and my youngest was five months at the time and it was tough I became so lethargic and I had no energy I literally couldn't I remember we would shoot scenes in that house and I would just I would just lie on the carpet like next to the couch because I was too lazy to go back to my trailer I just had no energy and I just be like I just and like crew would like walk step over me and it was just so somebody would bring me pizza and I just line this dirty carpet and shoving pizza down my throat and just just just not pretty I was going to ask if it was a freeing experience but it sounds miserable I Jason and I talked about it I was like I felt like I let him down because we definitely did not have as much fun as when we made young adult we definitely laughed a lot on that I was just really down I was really I mean again it I was felt lucky because it really worked for the character and I had never had postpartum depression myself so you know I thought I was just working on the physical and really what I got was a good understanding of what the mental was and so I I take that gift and I'm grateful for it but I wasn't prepared for it and I think that threw me for a loop and I kept apologizing and he was like stop apologizing this is great this is great keep going and I was like oh [Laughter] yeah I'm sorry not a little bit laughing but I want to take some quick questions from the audience if we have time again obviously I'm terrible at pronouncing people's names so forgive me if I get the wrong trip Langley trip did you sneak out or use a fake oh there you are how did I for you that your performance in Monster is the film performance that has had the most impact on me as an actor what performance affected you and has inspired your artistry Wow yeah thank you um a lot there's a lot of performances that have really kind of always stayed with me and sometimes like you know things that I think people somewhat weirdly are surprised by like Ripley was a character that really like for me as a woman just like was a game changer and it started even I think before I started making movies I remember seeing that movie and just for me as a performer as a woman it just it was like the glass ceiling was broken and I just was like oh I can do all of that and then of course like I grew up with a lot of Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep Kramer vs Kramer and Sophie's Choice I remember like you know being 15 and just like watching those movies over and over and thinking you know that was what life was gonna be turned out it wasn't but that's okay which is a good thing right that yet maybe it's coming but I those those women you know Frances Farmer Frances that movie she's called Frances Frances that performance Jessica Lange in that film I think like like did something to me as a young girl for sure trying to like think of there's a lot of a lot of those women there work really kind of did a lot for me I'm trying to think have you gotten to work with any of them no I haven't none of those people I just mentioned I know although you mentioned Ripley and you got to be in an aliens movie although do we officially call it an alien's movie prometheus Ridley Scott Ridley Scott about I don't know if he calls it that I think he does he talks like weirdly about it I don't quite understand it so we didn't pitch it to you as a guy no I mean I think he really kind of when we were working on it treated it like a standalone right and then there were some things that happened in the Edit editorial process that I realized that he wasn't sharing with us so then I was really confused but but I loved being in it I loved working with him we have a question from Taylor polidore is that correct oh hey you often portrays such strong and empowering roles do you believe that Hollywood is beginning to create space for even more powerful female roles yeah you know it's interesting because I feel like being in this industry for where are you there you are for the last okay we don't have to go into the home we've always had these like little moments where things would happen and it's like oh and then three months later nobody would be talking about it anymore in it I feel like this last year and everything that's happened if I see change that is is gonna be sustained I feel like change is happening things are happening right now where doors can't be shut or closed on what's kind of been opened and shown and that to me as a woman for myself as exciting to be alive and working and this time I mean obviously would have been great if that was the case 20 years ago but I'll take it now I'll take it and I'm happy that I'm part of it and I'm you know more than anything I look at my two girls and I'm so happy that they're gonna benefit from this and so I think that drives me to even want to make sure that we don't screw this up and that we actually do this in a way where it can sustain and and be something that is talked of in the past caveman style like done like do you remember those days you believe that so I am very very optimistic and I'm usually not sort of along those lines we have a question from Jonathan Moore wants to know was there ever a time when you wanted to quit acting and he wanted to know if so why but I'm more curious about how you persevered through it I don't think I ever wanted to quit I've never had that that that I've never I don't think I've ever thought about quitting I've definitely had moments where I've wanted to kind of have myself get out of situations for sure but I never thought oh my god it's like acting I really really love what I do I really like now I'm gonna cry I feel really lucky that you know my mom used to say to me the greatest gift that you can get in life is to do something in your life that doesn't feel like a job and I feel so lucky that I found something that has been such a gift to me and I really mean that because I feel like when you're an actor it's not so much like just finding character finding character it's they leave something on you - it's that has always been like for me the greatest thing about leaving a film is like how much of that investigation and that kind of diving into somebody's soul and their and it's usually like the bad things it's the things that you know we don't want to maybe look at the things that are not so pretty about the human condition that they that you leave and you go I understand people a little bit more and it makes me feel a little less scared and it makes me feel a little less alone that has been such a gift for me I feel like I am a better person because of that I'm so glad you really really love it because you're really really good at it and we so appreciate you being here today thank you guys for being a great audience you [Applause]

Channel: SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Views: 106,004

Rating: 4.8917418 out of 5

Keywords: SAG Foundation, SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Acting, Actors, Tully, Charlize Theron, Jenelle Riley, The Devil's Advocate, The Cider House Rules, Monster, Academy Award, Hancock, Young Adult, Snow White and the Huntsman, Mad Max: Fury Road, Atomic Blond, The Fast and the Furious, CTAOP, Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, Model turned actor, Q&A, Interview, Career

Id: 8_7-7pSDON4

Length: 56min 19sec (3379 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2018