If there’s one thing we know about Charlize Theron, it’s that action movies are hers for the taking, having been in films like Atomic Blonde , Mad Max: Fury Road , The Old Guard , and The Fate of the Furious .
But she recently revealed that during the 2003 remake of The Italian Job , she was required to do extra driving training than her male castmates, and she believes it was simply because she’s a woman.
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There is no arguing that Charlize Theron is an incredibly talented, multi-faceted actress.
But if there’s one thing she knows how to do exceptionally, it’s action flicks!
If she has one specialty, that has definitely got to be it!
There are very few people in the world that I would trust with driving stunts.
That trust would definitely fall to the entire cast of Fast and Furious and Charlize Theron (who is actually part of that cast).
But apparently, not everyone is in agreement about that…
Charlize recently revealed in a virtual interview for Comic-Con that while preparing for her 2003 film, *The Italian Job*, she was treated unfairly for being a woman.
Despite being one of the best in the biz, she was still assumed to need extra driving training than her male co-stars.
She called the experience “insulting”, and wants to make it clear that women can do action movies just as well (sometimes even better) than men can!
Preach, sis!
Women can do anything men can do. It’s about time people start acknowledging that.
She explained that being apart of *The Italian Job* made her realize that there was still a lot of work to be done for women in action films.
“For sure, The Italian Job was a great experience,” she said .
“In the sense that I realised there was still so much misconception around women in the genre”.
“Even though in that film the action is really based on cars. We had to physically do a lot of that stuff,” she added .
She revealed that the entire process was not designed to have her and her male co-stars on a leveled playing field.
From the get-go, it was assumed that she didn’t have the same amount of skill, simply because she’s a woman.
“There was a very unfair process that went with that,” she explained.
“I was the only woman with a bunch of guys and I remember vividly,” she went on , adding that her pre-production schedule was blatantly sexist.
How awful!
She detailed how it hurt her to see that she had to take more driving lessons than the men.
“The schedule in our pre-production and they had scheduled me for six weeks more car training than any of the guys. And it was just so insulting,” she said .
Despite feeling insulted, she admitted that it was also a big motivator for her to superceed her male colleagues once filming began.
“But it was also the thing that put a real fire under my [expletive],” she said .
“And I was like ‘alright, you guys want to play this game? Let’s go.'”
“And I made it a point to out-drive all of those guys,” she added .
And judging by the way we already know that movie turned out, we know she’s not embellishing — she absolutely killed it!
Thankfully, Charlize explained that things for women in action movies have marginally improved since then, setting the tone for women in that genre, moving forward.
“The good news now is that we’ve kind of changed the genre for women,” she said .
“I think there’s great evidence where we now know you can’t hide behind ignorance anymore,” she explained.
“Audiences love these films .”
We stan powerful women in action movies! You go, girl! Keep making those amazing movies!
What do you think of Charlize Theron’s latest interview, explaining how she was treated unfairly for being a woman on the set of *The Italian Job* back in 2003?
Let us know down below in the comment section!
We would love to hear from you!
