Charlize Theron Recalls Creepy Encounter With Major Producer During Her First Audition

Charlize Theron can’t forget her first audition even if she’d like to.

The Oscar-winning actress told Howard Stern on his radio show Monday about a creepy encounter she had with a “big deal” movie producer.

On the recommendation of a modeling agent in Los Angeles, Theron, who said she was 18 or 19 at the time, drove to the man’s house for an audition at 9 p.m. on a Saturday.

He answered the door in pajamas. Muzak played in the house. He was drinking. He had no interest in Theron reading the pages she had brought, saying he only wanted “to talk.”

“And then at one point he put his hand on my knee and I just went oof,” Theron said.

“You just go blank,” she added. “You don’t know what to do. But I left. I don’t even know how I got out of the house.”

The “Long Shot” star said she got angry at herself at the time for not responding forcefully: “Why didn’t I go tell him to fuck himself?”

That same producer offered her a job eight years later, Theron said. She showed up to meet him, only to remind him of what he had done. “I had my moment,” she said.

As the Me Too movement against predatory show business figures gained steam in 2018, Theron told The Seattle Times : “I feel in my core that there’s something about this movement that’s going to stick, and we’re just not going to go backward. I wish it was there 20 years ago when I started. I wish there was a way to speak about this stuff and not be judged or be shamed, or even just believed.” 

Watch her interview with Howard Stern above.