VIDEO : Charlize Theron Reveals Gaining Weight For New Role Really Affected Her

Many actors and actresses have gone to great lengths to gain or lose weight for roles, and Charlize Theron is no exception. In 2003, she gained a significant amount of weight for her Oscar-winning role in "Monster." The actress recently gained weight again to play an overworked mom in her upcoming film, "Tully." This time, however, Theron says the 50-pound weight gain led to depression.
"I wanted to feel what this woman felt, and I think that was a way for me to get closer to her and get into that mindset," Theron tells Entertainment Tonight. "It was a huge surprise to me. I got hit in the face pretty hard with depression."
Theron had just over three months to gain the weight. At first, she said the process was fun. "You're just like a kid in a candy store," she tells Entertainment Tonight. "It was fun to go and have breakfast at In-N-Out and have two milkshakes."
But three weeks into the process, Theron said eating started to feel like a job in itself. She went to extremes to continue putting on weight, even setting alarms in the middle of the night to eat cold macaroni and cheese that she kept by her bedside. "I would wake up and I would just eat it...I would just, like, shove it in my throat," she tells Entertainment Tonight.
Theron ate more processed foods and drank more sugar than she had in her entire life, which she thinks contributed to her mood. As it turns out, Theron's assumption isn't far off. Both processed foods and sugar have been linked to depression and mood swings. One 2017 study published in Scientific Reports found that foods and beverages with added sugars were linked to depressive symptoms. Another study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that participants with a diet higher in processed food had a 58% higher risk of depression than those who ate very few processed foods.
Theron's struggle with depression as a result of her weight gain has also been backed up scientifically. Many studies, including a review of 15 studies published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, have associated weight gain with depression, and vice versa.