Charlize Theron recalls sleazy audition with 'big name' producer

Charlize Theron. Photo / Getty Images

Charlize Theron has opened up on an audition with a "big name" producer which took an uncomfortable turn and "would have ended really badly" if she hadn't got away.

The star recalled the encounter on the Howard Stern Show, revealing she had only just turned 19 when it happened.

"I might have still been 18. I had never been out for an audition," she said. "I asked this modelling agent if she'd heard of anything... she said, 'Yep. Go to this guy's house. It's on Saturday at 9pm.'"

Theron went to the house and the man opened the door in his pyjamas.

She recalled: "He had a very healthy ego, he felt very good about himself. There was some kind of music playing in the house. He sat very close to me. That was strange. The drinking bothered me. I was like, 'This doesn't feel right.'"

She asked to audition but the producer said they were just going to talk.

"And then at one point, he put his hand on my knee," she said.

"You just go blank. Like you don't know what to do, but I left. I don't even know how I got out of the house, but I left. It would have ended really badly.

"I was driving my Ford Fiesta, that I was renting, up Laurel Canyon and I was so angry with myself that I didn't say something. I was like, I'm not that kind of girl. Why did I not tell him to go f**k himself?' It made me so angry."

It wasn't until eight years later when Theron had become a well-known name, that she confronted the producer but he apparently had no recollection of meeting her.

Theron did not name the producer but simply said: "He was a very big deal and is still a big deal."

Now 43, Theron is a staunch supporter of the #MeToo movement.

In 2018, she 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."