Charlize Theron Didn’t Puke Doing Car Stunts on The Italian Job, Wahlberg Did

Charlize Theron was on a special panel with Terri Schwartz from IGN to discuss her career as an action movie star, starting with the commercial flop Aeon Flux to the recent Netflix hit The Old Guard, and including The Italian Job and Mad Max: Fury Road.

That Charlize is one of the hottest female action movie stars of the moment is not news, and she’s using that status to shine the light on how unfairly women actors are treated on set, even when it comes to preparing for a more physically challenging role. On the panel, she singled out her training for The Italian Job, a movie where actors did most of their stunts – and that famously turned MINIs into badass racing machines.

Charlize had to train six weeks more than any other guy in the cast, which is a clear example of how the industry is biased against women and their potential for action scenes, she says. In the process, Charlize also spills some tea about how she never puked during intensive training – but Mark Wahlberg, aka the same guy who said 9/11 wouldn’t have happened had he been on the plane because he would have fought the bad guys, did.

“We had to physically do a lot of that stuff,” the actress recalled. “[…] I was like ‘alright, you guys wants to play this game? Let's go.’ And I made it a point to out-drive all of those guys.”

That said, Theron looks kindly on the experience, despite the “insulting” fact that she was made to train longer and harder on the mere assumption that she wouldn’t be able to do the car stunts. There was a lot of pressure to get everything right, but she thrives on pressure.

The entire panel discussion is available in the video below, with the discussion on The Italian Job driving stunts starting at the 5:10-minute mark.