Charlize Theron recalls a disturbing audition where a director made a sexual advance, saying she won’t stay silent or let anyone take advantage of her.
Charlize Theron revisited a disturbing early-career audition episode on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast while promoting her upcoming film, The Old Guard 2.
She recalled that, fresh out of drama school and still uncertain about industry protocols, her agency had instructed her to attend a “Saturday night audition” at a director’s house.
Trusting the process, she went—only to find the director greeting her in pajamas and, without warning, sliding his hand onto her knee.
The gesture immediately felt wrong, and Theron said the “little voice inside” her mind recognized the impropriety even as self-doubt crept in about whether she was misreading the situation.
She rose, left at once, and knew on the spot that the meeting wasn’t about her talent but something far more insidious.
Having first shared the incident on The Howard Stern Show in April 2019, Theron avoided naming the director now, explaining that she didn’t want to keep the spotlight on him.
Nevertheless, she made clear that he understood who she was talking about. After her initial public account, the director purportedly panicked, sending Theron a letter attempting to reframe his behavior as a misunderstanding on her part.
“He wrote me a pretend letter trying to explain his behavior and how I must have misunderstood it,” she scoffed, calling it “classic” gaslighting.
Theron expressed a measure of satisfaction in knowing the director remains uneasy, never certain when she might expose him by name.
“I kind of like that he’s got to be on a hot seat. He doesn’t know when it’s going to come,” she said with characteristic bluntness.
By refusing to utter his name, she underscored her control over the narrative and asserted that her story was never about assigning blame to a single individual but about spotlighting the broader issue of exploitation in Hollywood.
In closing, the Oscar winner emphasized her zero-tolerance policy for anyone attempting to exploit her—whether early in her career or at its peak.
“I will not let a motherfucker f— with me any day of the week,” she declared.
She reflected on the moment’s dual sting: the shock of being objectified and the realization that she had never stood a chance to earn the role.
“I wasn’t there because I had some value that I was going to bring to his movie.
I was only valued for one thing,” she said, underscoring the grim calculus faced by many aspiring actors.
