Charlize Theron on motherhood, equal pay and #MeToo.

Charlize Theron plays an end-of-her-tether mother of three (including an infant) in director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody’s Tully. most helped her.

“I just remember my body and my brain not really being on the same page,” she said. “That period, especially the first couple of months, is so all-consuming that you have these small moments where you realize how far you have pushed yourself aside just to make sure this little thing stays alive.”

During a telephone interview from Los Angeles, Theron, 42, discussed her onscreen transformation, the demands of motherhood and her fight for women’s rights in the movie industry. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

I don’t know how to play a woman who’s giving birth to her third child and then having to live in the aftermath of that body without doing it. Jason knows me and how I work and my process, and we both knew it had to happen. For me, it’s a way to get closer to the character and to try to feel as much as I possibly can.

Well, I thought I was just going to start with the physical transformation, and then I would get to her inner workings. And what ended up happening was very much like this character, and I think a lot of women. It really affects your mood and your brain when you’re eating that much processed food and sugar, and for the first time in my life I went into a really, really deep depression.

I have definitely felt powerless in situations because of the power that some men in my career have placed in the space that I had to work in. Or even prior to working — just trying to get a job or going out for an audition and having that feeling of: ‘Oh, OK, I get it. You’re letting me know that you’re the boss in the room, and my dignity is maybe not so important in this moment.’ I feel in my core that there’s something about this movement that’s going to stick, and we’re just not going to go backward. I wish it was there 20 years ago when I started.

I’ve had to put my foot down and say, ‘Look, if we’re going to make another movie, then we have to do it fair.’ The problem is that I know that I am not representative in my industry, and what I can do is not necessarily what every other woman out there can do. They might have families that they have to feed, and the fear of being replaced makes it not a choice. It’s those women that I want to help. And that’s where we have to change things.