Charlize Theron recently sat down for an interview in which she detailed the “intricate” work that was required for her Bombshell transformation into Megyn Kelly. While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about becoming the former Fox News anchor, Theron opened up about what went into the physical change, explaining, “We worked with the greatest [special effects makeup artist], Kazu Hiro. It’s really hard to get him to do new stuff. But I did a lot of begging and he came on and designed eight [prosthetic] pieces for me. Two of them basically covered my entire eyelids. It was very intricate work. Intricate work where you still need to be able to do what you need to do, like blink.”
Theron eventually went on to comment on the story behind the film, which is centered on Kelly and other former female Fox News correspondents and sexual assault allegations against late Fox news founder Roger Ailes.
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“The story itself was very familiar and one that in the recent couple of years we’ve had so much attention brought to by movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up,” she shared. “History has just repeated itself when it comes to women and their fight for equal rights, whether it’s the pay gap, or not wanting to be abused by power, or being threatened that their ambition is going to be used against them. And then ultimately they’ll lose their jobs.”
“Women also don’t always do the right thing. We tend to throw women under this general blanket when we tell these stories,” Theron continued. “It’s black and white — they were victims and then they were heroes and that’s the end of that story. These things are very complicated, and until we can actually look at the complexities of it, I don’t think we’ll ever really solve it.”
Interestingly, the film was originally set to be produced by Annapurna Pictures, but the studio backed out shortly before the film was to go into production. “I panicked. That’s the first thing I did,” Theron said of how she initially handled the news, later adding, “When our financing fell through, our greatest fear, it wasn’t that we wouldn’t get financing again — it was that if we pushed just one week, the whole movie would have fallen apart because of scheduling.”
Thankfully, Bron Studios — who partially financed Theron’s 2018 film, Tully — stepped in to take the project on.
“I shared with Jay [Roach, director of Bombshell] that I had a really great working experience with Bron, that they have great taste and I trust them,” she revealed. “And he said, ‘Stop talking. Just send it to them.’ And so I called Aaron Gilbert up and I said, ‘I’m sending you a script and I need to know as soon …’ And he came back to me six hours later and he said, ‘We’re in.’ So we just started making a deal.”
Bombshell is scheduled to open in theaters on Dec. 20.
