Charlize Theron opens up about fighting her way through a male-dominated genre

American actor Charlize Theron, known for her trailblazing roles in the action genre, detailed her struggle of being a woman part of a male-dominated aspect of the film industry. 

During Comic-Con@Home’s panel of ‘Evolution of Bada—s’, the Bombshell star, 44, wore her heart on her sleeve about the ‘unfair’ treatment she received during the 2003 remake of The Italian Job.

"I realized there was still so much misconception around women in the genre. The only good thing that came out of that experience was that there was a real pressure to pull off those stunts with the actors – and that was the first time I experienced anything like that," she said in the virtual round-table discussion.

"But there was a very unfair process that went with that. I was the only woman with a bunch of guys, and I remember vividly getting the schedule in our preproduction and they had scheduled me for six weeks more car training than any of the guys,” she went on to say.

She soon realized that the short-span wouldn’t allow her a learning process as thorough as the one being offered to her male costars.

"It was just so insulting, but it was also the thing that put a real fire under my [expletive] and I was like, 'All right, you guys want to play this game? Let's go,'" she continued.

"I made it a point to out-drive all of those guys. I vividly remember Mark Wahlberg, halfway through one of our training sessions, pulling over and throwing up because he was so nauseous from doing 360s,” she added.

"It wasn't until 'Mad Max: Fury Road' came my way -- that experience and what happened with that film really changed the trajectory for me. I don't think I will ever recover from the making of that film.”

"There is a responsibility to hand that baton over, that it's not just about you. Listen, it's still disproportionate to our male counterparts out there, and we have to keep putting the pressure on our industry to change that,” she said.

"I want my two young girls to grow up and not even think that this is weird or this is unusual or this is strange. I want this to be normalized,” she concluded.