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This time round it wasn't her killer legs or striking looks that did the job. Charlize looked downright ugly as American highway prostitute and serial killer Aileen Wuornos; she gained some 12 kilograms for the role, her face was made to look like it was weatherbeaten and scarred, she got a set of very bad teeth, and her hair was done trailer trash style. This, accompanied with a rivetting performance, is what Oscar awards are all about.
Charlize, however, honestly confessed to Elle magazine that is was a piece of cake (pun intended!) to pick up the odd 12 kilos. She apparently ate really late at night, and lived on stuff like potato chips, soy sauce and miso soup because the salt 'really got her bloated'.
But, boyfriend Stuart Townsend didn't complain once while she was shoving pizza, cheese and chips into her mouth and ballooning in front of him. "Charlize still remains Charlize, not so?" he now famously argued.
But what does the girl herself think about it?
"In the beginning it was great; you eat all the things you really want to eat. But after a while there's no specialness in it anymore," says Theron who has never been as overweight her life.
You may wonder why they didn't use a fat suit. The answer is simply because director Patty Jenkins wanted continuity and a true-to-life character. Besides, the making of Monster didn't start out with a big budget and expensive prosthetics was out of the question.
Weight loss is a nightmare for most women, and the question on everyone's lips is how did Charlize regain her skinny 61kg (she's almost 1.80 metres tall) frame when the movie was done. Unlike most, she admits it was no fun at all, and the treadmill became her best friend. In an interview with the magazine LA Confidential Charlize confessed that within three days she stopped smoking (to support Stuart who had also quit) and drinking alcohol and only had two small meals a day. "When you loose two or three pounds nothing really changes" she told the magazine - which so aptly echoes the frustration most women go through when trying to lose weight. And yet she regards it as merely what it takes to get the job done: "I guess it was part of shedding the character," she said.
According to sociologist Michael Kimmel, changing yourself physically for a role is "probably more dangerous for woman's acting career than for a man's", seeing that women normally get considered for a role based on their good looks. And still Charlize was willing to take that chance.
"She [Wuornos] wasn't fat," Charlize says, "she was just somebody who had lived on the streets all her life and there was nothing firm on her. She had a baby when she was 13 years old and she hated her body. I had to get to that place where I could feel uncomfortable with my body."
The disfiguring didn't end there. Make-up artist Toni G. created flaws on Charlize's face, adding broken capillaries and freckles as well as a bad case of melasma (facial discolouration caused by excessive oestrogen from pregnancy and birth control pills).
Charlize told LA Confidential how Toni went to work. "She used a kind of liquid latex, which you apply wet. Then she would go over it with a hairdryer until it was dry and leathery. Then she would airbrush different colours all over my face."
They also used gelatin on her eyes to make the lids really heavy and droopy. Charlize had to shave her eyebrows and dye her lashes blonde. She also had to wear a set of false teeth as her own set was too straight and shiny.
Her brilliance in Monster has put Charlize in a new league - that of actors and actresses who have proven that they can impersonate a character with ease and authenticity. But that is her way of doing things - rather give 200% or not do it at all.
Monster is a movie not to be missed. And just to keep you completely satisfied, Charlize will also be starring in Head in the Clouds (alongside fiancee Stuart Townsend) and Life and Death of Peter Sellers later this year.
