Charlize Theron on going bald for 'Mad Max': They were 'concerned about the shape of my head'

When Charlize Theron sat down to talk about her character Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, one of the biggest things she and director George Miller struggled with was how to style such a fierce warrior woman. After they tried everything from platinum hair to a ponytail, it was Theron who suggested just shaving all of it off.

“I had done a press junket. My hair was really fried. And I had a night where I thought, ‘You know what? What if we just shave it?'” Theron said. “I wasn’t fully convinced, so I called George. I probably woke him up at 3 a.m., and I said, ‘What do you think about this idea?’ And he was just really quiet. And then I could hear him breathe. It was like he took a deep breath. And I took that as a positive. And then I found out yesterday that he was concerned about the shape of my head.”

“They told you?” Miller asked, laughing.

After Miller gave his tentative go-ahead, Theron borrowed clippers from a friend and started shaving her own head. When she was finished, she sent a selfie to Miller, who texted her back: “Awesome, Furiosa.”

Not only was it the right look for Mad Max, but Theron said it made her own beauty routine much more manageable.

“After that, I was 20 minutes early to everything in my life,” she said. “It was unbelievable, like how much time we spend on our hair. And then also, I think I emptied two garbage bags full of hair products and brushes.There’s something very freeing in that, for sure, definitely. And there’s always something nice when you kind of take that importance of your femininity and make it about something more than just your hair.”

“But it’s also nice to have hair,” she added.

Reporting by Scott Huver.