Charlize Theron slams her 'unfair' treatment on 'The Italian Job' remake
Charlize Theron has slated the makers of the The Italian Job remake for adding in six more weeks of driving training than her male co-stars.
Theron played Stella Bridger in the 2003 movie, a retooled version of the classic 1969 comedy caper starring Michael Caine.
She joined the likes of Edward Norton, Mos Def, Jason Statham and Donald Sutherland – Theron played Sutherland's safe cracker character's daughter – on the bill, opposite lead man Mark Wahlberg.
But she's now revealed that she was not treated in the same way as the male talent.
In an interview for the Comic-Con at Home online event, she said: “There was a real pressure to pull off those stunts with the actors. There was a very unfair process that went with that.
“I was the only woman with a bunch of guys, and I remember vividly getting the schedule in our pre-production, and they had scheduled me for six weeks more car training than any of the guys. It was just so insulting.”
However, rather than take the slight personally, instead it “put a real fire under my ass” to prove she could do the stunts just as well as her male co-stars.
“I was, like, ‘All right, you guys want to play this game, let’s go,’” she went on.
“I made it a point to out-drive all of those guys. I vividly remember Mark Wahlberg, halfway through one of our training sessions, pulling over and throwing up because he was so nauseous from doing 360s.”
She also performed “a reverse 360 or maybe 180 in a warehouse with props everywhere... completely on my own”.
“It was a huge moment for feeling, like, ‘Yeah, we can do all this stuff, and women are so unfairly thought of or treated in genre.’”
Despite Theron's best efforts behind the wheel, the movie, directed by F. Gary Gray, was a distinctly moderate success, earning $176 million from its $60 million budget, profits which would have been whittled down extensively by marketing and advertising spend.
Theron is currently starring in The Old Guard, streaming on Netflix.
