"She's the most hopeful person I've ever encountered," says Charlize Theron of Aileen Wuornos, the Florida prostitute executed in 2002 after confessing to the murders of six men. "She never dwelled on the negativity; she was always looking for the silver lining on the clouds, for that ray of light. I admired that she never asked for sympathy."

The debut film from writer-director Patty Jenkin's, Monster is as troubling and complex as its notorious antihero. Invoking the spirit of such uncompromising films as In Cold Blood, Badlands, The Executioner's Song, and Dead Man Walking, Monster takes a dispassionate look at a killer--and the society she inhabits--and somehow manages to arrive at some strange measure of empathy.

working on true life material
While Wuornos's story is essentially public domain, most of the characters surrounding her in Monster have had their names changed, and, for dramatic purposes there are several fictionalised and/or composite characters.

When asked about initial concerns she may have had portraying a real-life figure, Theron candidly admits: "First, you freak out! The greatest responsibility is that this is someone's life and they're not here anymore and you have to try to translate that experience for people and honour it in a truthful way. A week away from shooting, I really started panicking," the actress recalls. "I was praying I could crawl into this woman's skin--so the performance wouldn't be these conscious decisions. And I was just experiencing lots of emotions; there were lots of 3AM phone calls to Patty. But, if you're lucky, those decisions do become unconscious because you've done your homework and foundation work."

Says director Jenkins of the film's sensitive subject matter: "I felt extremely responsible to the audience to be very clear about the fact that Wuornos did some very horrible things and she knew that she had done some horrible things, and not tell the story of a glorified serial killer but rather to service the greater truth, which was that this person--who was an incredible victim in so many ways--became the problem in other ways and killed innocent people and ruined people's lives. All of that was incredibly important for me to try to capture responsibly."

Adds Theron, who emigrated to America from her native South Africa in 1994, and was largely unfamiliar with Wuornos's story before her involvement in Monster: "We just wanted to tell a truthful story, we didn't set out to make a 'let's-feel-sorry-for-the-serial killer movie. And when you just tell the truth, and observe things closely, you do arrive at empathy."

the research
While Wuornos was on death row for twelve years, she began writing letters every day to her best friend from childhood. (This woman, who regained contact with Wuornos after she had been arrested, was the person with whom Wuornos chose to spend her final hours before execution.) During this time, Jenkins befriended both woman, gaining their trust and convincing them of the honesty of her intentions. This resulted in Wuornos granting the filmmakers access to her letters on the night before her execution, and Jenkins and Theron immersing themselves in over a decade's worth of her prison writing.

"In the last years of her life, nearing execution, Aileen had become an incredible eloquent writer and would write these long letters filled with memories about things that had happened to her," explains Jenkins. "Some of these things were childhood memories and were just heartbreaking--and had a big influence on the voiceovers in the film--because of the way she could talk about these horrors with a kind of detachment, like she was telling a story about something else that was happening."

Through immersing themselves in the Wuornos's prison writing, Theron also picked up a number of the woman's speech patterns, expressions, and malapropisms, which found their way into the script and voiceovers: "She would use 'all that jazz' all the time," relates Theron. "And she'd also switch words around in certain expressions, and I started doing that."

Perhaps even more dramatically, certain scenes in the screenplay were enhanced and, in some cases, dramatically changed due to details culled from the letters. "Certain scenes as described in the letters were even more interesting, more powerful than what was in the script," says Jenkins. Both Jenkins and Theron point to the bus stop scene--perhaps one of the most poignant and heartbreaking in the film--as a scene that drew directly from Wuornos's letters.

"We knew that Aileen had sent the Selby character home," says Theron. "But there were letters that explained exactly how it all happened, exactly what was said. Patty and I had a couple of moments on the set where we realised the profound responsibility we had to her, and that was one of them."

Other scenes, such as Wuornos's capture at the biker bar, The Last Resort, and Wuornos in her prison holding cell, were filmed on the actual locations where those events took place. Jenkins, a graduate of the Director's Program at the American Film Institute with a fine arts background, was extremely conscious of the film's overall milieu. "Ed McEvoy, my production designer, and I were deeply involved in trying to find the right look of this place, the subtleties of it: the life, the bars, the motels," says Jenkins. "I was incredibly afraid of Monster being a movie filled with the wrong kind of stores, where I know '89 Daytona Beach is all 7-11 convenience stores and gas stations and freeways.

the romance behind the fear
"Monster is about someone's life and her search for love, and this profound need to be loved," says Theron. "In that way, it's a beautiful love story, not just a serial killer movie."

"Monster is a love story," agrees Producer Mark Damon. "Aileen would not have lived all those years if she'd not met the Selby character. She'd been abused and mistreated her entire life and learned never to trust anyone. The lesbian aspect of their relationship is, I think, largely beside the point. Love was all Aileen ever wanted, and all she was living for."

In disarming ways, in telling the story of a convicted serial killer, Monster manages to adhere to some classic Hollywood romance tropes. One scene in particular, a roller derby set to an 80s Journey song, flirts with a kind of self-conscious pop kitschiness. "I kept thinking that if some of our scenes had been between a man and a woman, it might be too overt or simple," says Jenkins. "But in this context it becomes so powerful, that they're both chasing this antiquated kind of romance."

Key to making Monster's love story palpable, was the incisive casting of one of Hollywood's best and busiest young actresses, Christina Ricci, as Selby Wall. "I like the gray area in matters like this," says Ricci. "You have to have sympathy for everybody that you play, but it's interesting for me to have grown sympathy for a certain personality type that I formerly might not have felt sympathy toward. Aileen represents what we do in society, which is to turn our backs on people who need help the most, and that's what attracted me to the story."

subtle effects, extreme transformation
"I don't think any of us expected the transformation that Charlize and Patty and [makeup artist] Toni G. ultimately gave us," says Producer Clark Peterson. "The individual effects are all very subtle but the result is an extreme transformation that I think will surprise a lot of people."

Relating the first time he had seen Theron in character as Wuornos, Peterson continues: "The first day of camera tests, a woman walked past everyone who we thought was the stand-in for Charlize. And I remember thinking, 'Huh, she really looks like Aileen.' And it was only after a while that I realised it was Charlize. The contact lenses, the hair, somehow she assumed this character so thoroughly that it just consumed her body language and speech and bearing. It was truly remarkable to witness."

In order to play Wuornos, Theron--who began her career as a model in her native South Africa before coming to the U.S. as a ballerina with the Joffrey Ballet--gained between twenty-five and thirty pounds. Perhaps equally instrumental in her remarkable physical transformation were the efforts of makeup artist extraordinaire Toni G., recommended for Monster by legendary, Academy Award"-winning makeup and special effects wizard Rick Baker, with whom she'd worked on such films as Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.

"I was very impressed by the chemistry and the passion that Patty and Charlize had for the project," says Toni G. of the team's first meeting. "It really seemed a love-child project for them, and that extra something doesn't always happen." After committing to the project, Toni G.'s first order of business was studying photos of her lead actress and comparing them with the woman she meant to portray. "When I began looking at photos of Aileen and Charlize, I thought the one person I really needed is the best sculptor I can find, because a bad dental piece will throw people out of the movie immediately."

Toni G. called upon the talents of Art Sakamoto, a sculptor with whom she'd worked at Baker's studio. Two sets of teeth were constructed for Theron, one pair used for long shots and one for close-ups. "The teeth were the most constricting structure we designed because Charlize had to learn to speak with them, just as someone would have to adjust their speech if they were wearing a retainer or dentures; there's different space for your tongue to articulate properly," explains Toni G. "But Charlize was able to use that for the performance. In the end, I think they aided in her speech pattern, and even during rehearsal, she'd want her teeth." Says Theron, who also worked with famed dialect coach Brooks Baldwin in preparation for the role. "I could leave the contact lenses and teeth in and makeup on for sixteen hours and never found it distracting."

One measure of Toni G.'s artistry is that, apart from the teeth, no appliances or prosthetics were used on Theron's face to alter her appearance. The thickest area of makeup applied to the actress's face was around her eyelids--gelatin that created weight on Theron's eyelids, causing them to droop and making her look tired.

"Everything else was paints," explains Toni G. "Our goal was to keep it very clean and natural-looking. But there were a lot of layers there. It became all about taking her beautiful, creamy skin and building textures, adding dimension to it."

To achieve this effect, Toni G. started with clear sealers, which she dried completely to create an initial layer of skin texturization. "Then, I basically painted her face the way I would a prosthetic piece," Toni G. explains of the makeup application procedure, which took between one-and-a-half to two hours and involved spattering makeup effects with an airbrush that mimic red tones, freckling, and sun damage. "Her face, her neck, her hands, everything had at least a light coat on it. And I hand painted the capillaries and additional shading to get the emphasis where I wanted, such as deepening her nasal folds."

"Toni G. is a miracle worker," gushes Theron. "The most important thing was we didn't want to make it a caricature. I remember Toni showed up in my kitchen one day to measure my teeth and a few weeks later we were in Florida doing the first makeup and hair test I looked in the mirror and said, 'How did this happen?'"

Once shooting began, the humid Florida weather and many of Monster's emotional scenes--moments which called for blood, sweat, and tears--proved challenging. "You don't want to get the makeup wet. But on set you want to try keeping touch-ups as minimal as possible so you're not interfering with the actor's concentration," says Toni G. Makeup is only as good, however, as the actor animating it and the cinematographer lighting it. Fortunately, Toni G. found an ideal collaborator in Monster's director of photography Steve Bernstein.

"Someone can completely repaint your face with light. That's really the last part of makeup," Toni G. explains. "Steve was great. He got it. Everyone was interested in the stroke each artist was adding to this collective painting. Patty really knew what she wanted, Steve lit it correctly so it worked even better, and Charlize?. . ." says Toni G., reserving her highest praise for Theron: "Charlize is my all-time favourite actress I've ever
worked with. I rarely sit on set and think, 'What is the actor going to do with this next scene?' With Charlize I was completely immersed in every moment. She literally gave me goose bumps her performance is so good and so true."

"I didn't think about it much," Theron demurs when asked about upending audience expectations. "I just saw this role as a tremendous opportunity to grow. Playing Aileen was hands down the most challenging, rewarding thing I've ever done."

being the producer and the star
Soon after making her decision to play Wuornos, Theron also committed to an important behind-the-scenes role as well. "I've had a production company [Denver & Delilah Films, named after Theron's two beloved cocker spaniels] for four years, but we've been mostly involved in development," explains Theron of her decision to make Monster her first producing credit. "I was hoping to learn as much as I possibly could."

One anecdote indicative of Theron's dedication comes from early in pre-production: the 28-year-old star flew into Florida on the red-eye from California, drove straight to a 7AM tech scout, reviewed various set locations through that evening, and then sat for a three-hour makeup test. "I wouldn't take the credit if I didn't do the work," says Theron, who put her salary back into the film to help meet finishing costs.

"Charlize was absolutely avid in her desire to make this, her first producing credit, something important," says Producer Mark Damon. "She has spent enormous time and care on every aspect of this film: from script work and research, to sitting in the cutting room, to the final mixing and scoring and beyond. There's absolutely no ego there. Charlize is as straight and honest and open as they come."
Likewise, Theron has nothing but praise for her dedicated crew and writer-director Jenkins. "There is no question in my mind that this is what Patty is meant to do," says Theron. "Patty was so comfortable and in control on the set. The first week was really rough but she wasn't phased by anything, she knew what she wanted. As a producer, working with her was very easy. As an actor, it was heaven."

Concurs Producer Peterson: "I've worked with a lot of first time directors, and Patty is the most experienced first-time director I'd ever worked with. Her vision is so clear and crystallised to her, and she's able to convey that to everyone around her so clearly and confidently that you feel like you've done this with."

Says Jenkins, summing up what was in many ways an idyllic first moviemaking experience: "I constantly think to myself that it may never be this way again. When you're doing something with not much money, people come together for these incredibly pure reasons. It's just been a very pure experience, and I've been so moved by every aspect of the story that we're telling."