Charlize Theron bagged an Oscar award for her dramatic transformation in Patty Jenkins’ Monster (2003), but behind the glitz of that success, the film almost did not make it to the big screen. One of the main reasons no one wanted to produce it was due to Theron’s appearance.
Monster was based on the account of real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos. It grossed over $64 million against a budget of $1.5 million, and it currently holds an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
No One Supported Charlize Theron’s Most Daring Movie
In her interview with Orange County Register, actress Charlize Theron narrated how no one wanted to get her project with director Patty Jenkins off the ground. Despite the intriguing story, producers were not keen on bringing to life the story of a not-so-well-known murderer.
“There wasn’t one person in this industry who wanted that film made. We had our financiers calling us at 3 a.m. and asking us what the hell we were doing.”
More importantly, they were concerned with how Theron appeared in the film. The actress admitted to gaining weight for her role, and with the addition of prosthetics, she looked utterly unrecognizable.
“They didn’t like the way I looked, and they wondered who would want to see this movie. When we finished, we couldn’t pay a distributor to take it. We were hours away from signing a straight-to-video deal with Blockbuster when we found a distributor.”
Jenkins explained in her conversation with IGN why she chose to hire a beautiful actress and later made her look ugly to play the role instead of casting a legitimately unattractive person.
“Well, the reality is there aren’t a lot of professional actresses who look like Aileen Wuornos. The reality is in the pool of working actresses today, there is a demand for people who are beautiful, so the reality is the majority of people who are high-functioning professionals are attractive.”
She went on to argue that Wuornos used to be a good-looking woman before all the hardships in life happened to her.
Patty Jenkins On Casting Charlize Theron As Aileen Wuornos
In the same interview with IGN, Patty Jenkins revealed why she hired Charlize Theron for the role of Aileen Wuornos. Apart from her acting prowess and versatility, she believed there was a sense of vulnerability that the actress could seamlessly translate on the big screen.
It was also a matter of making wise decisions. Jenkins will have to cast someone with a strong following to carry the project. An unknown criminal figure portrayed by an unknown actress would not work in Hollywood.
“It’s banking on a straight-to-video release. Particularly because this was not Ted Bundy, this was living people right now who still were dealing with it. So for me, this was not something I could take a chance shooting in 12 days in Romania with two B-movie actresses and being responsible to telling this story correctly.”
Theron remarked that winning an Oscar was some sort of a reward only for this specific role, not some kind of validation for her career. Indeed, her performance was truly deserving of such recognition.
Monster is available to stream via Netflix and Amazon Prime.
