To gain 50 pounds for her role in Tully, Charlize Theron indulged in a diet that can only be described as a 7-year-old’s dream. On the menu: macaroni and cheese, milkshakes and her “drug of choice” potato chips. The Oscar winner was never more than a few feet away from the salty snack.
“I had a bag in the car, a bag in the bathroom, a bag in the kitchen, a bag on the couch, a bag in my trailer,” Theron revealed on the Wednesday, April 24, episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Everywhere I went, there was a bag.”
All the processed food began to take its toll. The actress, who is mom of son Jackson, 6, and daughter August, 2, began to feel “lethargic and tired all the time.” And her overall mood was effected.
“I dealt with depression for the first time,” Theron shared. “What they say about, you know, what you eat is kind of who you are is so true. I ate like a person who just didn’t move, and I felt like that. That was a hard thing to break, because it’s more mental than it is almost physical.”
Theron, who plays an exhausted, suburban mother in the drama, has had her hands full in real life with her two kids. Apparently the siblings have started picking on each other.
“It’s like war in our house every single day!” exclaimed the South Africa native. “‘Don’t touch me! Don’t look at me!’ ‘I wanna be alone!’ I’m like, ‘Are they 13 already?’”
This isn’t the first time Theron has undergone a transformation for a role. She gained 30 pounds in 2003 to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, a role that earned her an Academy Award. But she found it much harder to bounce back this time around.
“I was younger, I was 27, and I just didn’t snack for a week and was back into shape,” she told DeGeneres. “It was insane. That doesn’t happen anymore.” (She previously revealed it took her a year to lose the Tully weight.)
Tully opens in theaters on May 4.
