A year has passed since the first rave reviews of writer/director Patty Jenkins’ debut feature, Monster, began circulating in December of 2003. Over the course of this year, Charlize Theron won a Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of the troubled Aileen Wuornos, Jenkins’ name was propelled to the forefront of the film world, New Market films released a bon a fide hit and Monster’s veteran producers Clark Peterson, Mark Damon and Brad Wyman intensified their reputations for being able to flesh out and develop savvy, literate projects.

Intent on getting the full story about this movie, a film that is being regarded as one of the most influential films of the last decade, writer Edward Krupka spoke to Theron, Jenkins, Peterson, Damon, Wyman, cinematographer Stephen Bernstein, editor Arthur Coburn and makeup artist Toni G. This is the story of Monster.

Patty Jenkins: I was an AFI (American Film Institute) graduate when I first got taken with the story of this serial killer, Aileen Wuornos. Not long after I started thinking about it I made a short that got into an AFI fest. I knew Aileen’s story was something that had to be told and I wanted to make this movie. That’s when I met Brad.

Brad Wyman: I met Patty at an AFI Alumni film fest thing called, Kodak Connect. It’s like speed dating for filmmakers. Picture this: you sit at a table and a young student comes up and talks to you for about 10 minutes about themselves and their projects. A bell rings and then the next student comes up. Well, after about two dozen students came up, my food was getting stale. Then sitting across from me was this beautiful, brown haired, Veronica. You know, like in the Archie comic books? That was Patty [Jenkins].

She says very earnestly, ‘How do I get my movie made?’ ‘What movie do you want to make?’ I asked. ‘The Aileen Wuornos story.’ ‘Who’s Aileen Wuornos?’ ‘She’s a female serial killer on death row. She has a relationship with a woman.’ I said, ‘Hmmm, lesbian serial killers are something I think we could actually get made.’

Patty Jenkins: So I told Brad about this serial killer on death row. He told me that he thought he could help. He told me he’d introduce me to the right people. While I appreciated that, I ended up not taking any of those deals [with people Brad introduced me to] because they couldn’t care less about who was in the project. They were banking on it being a straight to video release. So I went out and wrote the script on spec. Once I finished it, I went back to Brad.

Securing

Funding

Brad Wyman: I did introduce Patty to a few people, but she’s a very focused person. She wanted to direct this movie herself. [After she passed on those offers and wrote the script for Monster], I read it and optioned it with my partner, Donald Kushner. We were the first money into the project.

On that note, we started making the rounds and that’s when Donald met Mark Damon and presented the project to him.

Patty Jenkins: Brad was getting it around to the minors, like Lions Gate, and some others. That’s when other people got wind of the project and started to get involved.

Mark Damon: Monster was brought to me by an old friend named Brad Wyman who was managing an incipient, young director named Patty Jenkins. I read the script and thought it was too rambling; but the worst thing that would happen would be for it to go the Blockbuster route–straight to video.

They told me the budget would be around 2.6. They were way off. But, on the basis of that, it wouldn’t be too much of a risk. That’s when I met Patty. I was completely captivated by her. She was a seductress of the best kind. Her passion and her ability with words... she just casts a spell.

Patty Jenkins: I met with Mark and told him about how Monster is not your average Ted Bundy thing. This is about women serial killers. This is a true story about people living with it. That’s the way we wanted to treat it. It’s not your average run-of-the-mill straight to video movie.

Mark Damon: Once I got to talking with Patty about the characters, the psychology and all, I saw the enormous amount of research she did. She worked on this for three years, kept in touch with the woman; she definitely knew what she was doing. I was totally convinced that she had the ability to pull this off.

Patty also had Wuornos’ confidence which was vital. So we bankrolled the film 100% at just under six million.

Brad Wyman: Once Mark got to know Patty, he felt confident enough in her abilities to really see how this character would develop. The funding was under way. Then they got to trimming the fat out of the script.

Patty Jenkins: I worked with Mark very closely on honing the script. We had some disagreements about where we were taking the character. But we were on it. After working on several drafts, we felt it was right. Once we got that point in time, we were going to start shooting it.

Mark Damon: We worked on the script arduously; she was working on it for over, I’d say, 15 months. That’s when we felt it was almost there. Close, but it still had too much dialogue. Patty is very forthright in her opinions and we had some serious discussions. Patty never stopped talking. She’s very smart and she’d do everything she could to make you see it her way. She’s such an enchantress–in the best sense mind you, that, she’ll go that extra step to prove her point.

Brad Wyman: At this point, we were looking for a lead, but Patty was headstrong and wanted Charlize Theron.

Patty Jenkins: I had been wracking my brain [trying to think of a lead for the film]. I woke up in the middle of the night one night and The Devil's Advocate was on TV. There was this close-up of Charlize’s face–she was playing a mad woman–I just sat up and thought, "Yeah, Charlize really could do it."

The next day I wrote [the script with her in mind]. But I never thought I'd get her, because, at the time, this was an unfunded movie, and I was an unproduced screenwriter-director. Hell, I must have been high on crack.

Charlize Theron: Patty and I actually met because of the script. We hit it off immediately. Patty was looking at some people for this role when I heard about this script she had written on Aileen Wuornos. This was a hell of a role.

Patty Jenkins: When the script went out there, talk built up very quickly. A lot of people wanted to do it. I thought, "Well, if they all want to do it, I want to know if Charlize would want to do it."

When Charlize came around, she was unlike all the other girls. She was the least enthusiastic of all of them. She was like, "Why do you want me?" I think she was mistrustful that it was going to be some sexy, hot, exploitive lesbian thing. However, when we talked about the character, she came around. We totally clicked. There was no other choice.

Charlize Theron: I had just wrapped up another movie when I heard about this script. I read a lot of scripts, but when I read the script [for Monster] I was like, "Whoa!" I was blown away by the writing. I had no idea Aileen existed. And she’s this very conflicted, troubled woman.

Generally, I’ve found that the guys tend to get those parts. I met with Patty and we totally clicked. I thought, "No matter what happens with this film, [this role] is going to take me to a whole new level." I told Patty I really wanted to be part of it. I knew I was in the right hands with her.

Pre-Production

Clark Peterson: Once we got the funding, we started to send out the script to some actresses who we thought would be right for the role. But Patty was sticking with Charlize. The day the press found out about it, the day they found out that Charlize became a producer, they quickly got in on it.

Mark Damon: Patty had Charlize in mind from the very beginning. She’s very resolute in her thinking and I have to say, she was right. Charlize’s performance was electrifying,

Brad Wyman: We sent the script out to a lot of top actresses–these beautiful superstars who were vying for the part. I can’t say which ones they were, but a lot of them were named Kate.

Patty Jenkins: Charlize was the only person that I can remember being right for the role. Before I ever wrote the script, I was consumed with the thought that if the wrong person played Aileen, the movie was going to go down the drain. There were a lot of talented actresses going for it, and I could imagine them trying to come off as strong with a gun in their hand and it just terrified me.

Charlize Theron: It was only after meeting Patty Jenkins that I immediately knew I wanted to do it. I knew this was something very unusual that might never come my way again. These movies just don't get made that often. I called my manager and said, ‘I really like this script." She said, ‘Well, you should probably watch [Nick Broomfield’s] documentary, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, because Monster’s based on a real person." I stepped back and said, "Really? I never knew she existed." It was a little different when I realized that this was somebody's life and there was a lot of responsibility at hand.

Patty Jenkins: I wanted Charlize to really feel the inner emotional core of the character; so we salvaged all the stuff we could get on her. Audio tapes, anything that pertained to Aileen. We looked around. That’s when I found out about the letters.

Charlize Theron: The greatest thing for me on an emotional level was the fact that Aileen had written letters to her only friend in Michigan for twelve years while she was on death row. We were just scavengers. Patty and I went to Michigan and spent two days in her friend’s house just reading those twelve years of letters. I absorbed that and saw what happened to her when she was on death row: you’ve got nothing to lose, so you become very honest and open. That was the point where I felt that I truly understood what she had gone through in her life. It helped me tremendously.

Patty Jenkins: Charlize showed me the vulnerability that was needed to play Aileen. Then Christina Ricci came on and everyone else followed.

Charlize Theron: I don’t know how to play other people’s emotions without using my own. It’s not how I was trained as an actor. The only thing I know how to do is to substitute my own emotion for my character’s pain, loss and betrayal. That’s the only way I know how to work and I had to find those things in me so that I could relate to the pain that Aileen had gone through.

I can’t even imagine going through the pain and things that she went through, but I had to try and get as close to that as I possibly could in my own life.

Principal Photography

Brad Wyman: We shot in Orlando, Florida in February 2003 on a tight twenty-eight day schedule. I think except for a few things, it moved pretty well.

Clark Peterson: We just shot for a few days when the [director of photography] we had wasn’t working out. We were just a bit off. Patty wasn’t happy. So, I contacted someone I knew that could bring it back together. That’s when I called Steven.

Steven Bernstein: I was shooting SWAT at the time. We were on a bridge that we were going to blow up for a crucial scene in the movie. I got thirteen cameras going full on when I get a call from Clark telling me about what was happening. It was Friday; he sent me a script that day. I read it, loved it, and spoke to Patty at two in the morning. We got along famously. I was there the next day.

Patty Jenkins: Steven and I had a great working relationship because we’re both film lovers. We love movies, especially the older ones. Steven also works very fast, which made it much easier for me to focus on the performances in the film.

Steven Bernstein: Patty and I had this shorthand way of talking. She’d come up me and tell me she wants a certain scene like in Welles’ Citizen Kane or Fritz Lang or whomever. And that made it easy for me to communicate with her cause we’re both film freaks and we had that knowledge of film lore.

Patty Jenkins: Charlize and I didn’t have enough time to really prepare for this movie. Certain things did have to be addressed: the makeup for one. We knew the makeup was crucial. It had to be right. Aileen was a woman who lived in the sun. She was unkempt. So we looked at a few people then we saw Toni G.’s work. That’s when Charlize said, "We’ve got to get this girl."

Charlize Theron: I remember talking to Rick Baker who worked with me on Mighty Joe Young, and asking him who we could use [for makeup]. He mentioned Toni and said we should look at her reel. We did and we really liked what we saw. She was working on something else at the time, so we knew it was a long shot to get her. She very gracefully stepped out of that movie and came and did this with us.

Patty Jenkins: Aileen was living a pretty rugged existence. She was homeless; she was working the streets. She was living in bad weather. We had to show the effect it had on her. And we need Toni to make that come to life.

Toni G: I was working on pirates doing makeup for Pirates of the Caribbean and was booked to do another movie, Haunted Mansion, when someone called Rick’s shop. It was Charlize. She asked Rick about me and he said. "Toni, she’s great." So we met at the Chateau Marmont I think on a Sunday. They saw a movie I did, The General’s Daughter. They were impressed with the scene in that film that showed the girl when she gets tied up; they liked that I showed a vulnerable, emotional side.

It was surreal. Here I am working on this pirate show and then I’m talking to Patty and Charlize about Aileen Wuornos. I felt very inspired to work with an actress and a director that were all on the same page.

Charlize Theron: I didn’t want the transformation of me into Aileen to become about prosthetics and a fat suit. I knew very early on that, in order to understand her journey, I was going to have to get myself in a place where I felt the same things she might have felt. Unfortunately, I had to get my body to that place too.

She wrote in a letter that when she was a prostitute, she never took her shirt off. She had a baby when she was thirteen. She didn’t like her body. Naturally, I’m very athletic looking, I don’t know how I could have played this part with this body. I had to transform my body to get myself into her skin. I’ve tried hard in my career to change and transform in my roles, but I’ve never done anything like this. I come from a dance background. In dance, I told stories with my body. That stayed with me and I still feel that’s part of my job.

Mark Damon: The transformation was something to see. Charlize really inhabited the character. And the way she looked like Aileen, especially her eyebrows. This is all a testament to Toni G’s work. It was an incredible job.

Clark Peterson: No one really expected that the level of transformation would be as good as it was. I remember on the first day on the set, when Charlize was in makeup someone came up to me and started talking. I thought it was one of the stand ins; when in fact, it was Charlize with the contacts and everything. No CG–just Toni G. Charlize was all there.

Toni G: When you saw Charlize, it was pretty freaky because Charlize would get her makeup on, and she could just feel the character. She’d get in the chair and we’d apply makeup and get in her teeth and contacts, and she’d go off into her lumbering walk. It gave me goose bumps.

Charlize Theron: I didn’t want it to be a caricature. Patty said, "It’s got be real." That’s why we shot it in Orlando. That’s where it all happened. Totally real. And I’m highly critical of these [falsities].

When I watch the movie, I feel so satisfied that you don’t see the makeup. You see the character; I thank Toni G for that.

Toni G: I had to create stuff because we didn’t have too much set up time. We had contact lenses and false teeth made and that just added a sense of authenticity to the character.

Charlize Theron: I remember Toni coming over to my apartment and measuring my teeth to make the [false teeth] and getting me to wear those contact lenses. It was a pretty freaky.

Toni G: I applied makeup to Charlize’s face everyday thru principal because I wanted to paint Charlize like I would a piece of latex. The key element to coloration is layering the skin’s undertones and sun damage in translucent washes that are spattered and hand painted in various patterns to create dimension and texture. We needed it to appear in her skin, not on top of it. Her teeth hadn’t been cared for; she appeared turgid from the abuse of alcohol and an unhealthy diet; she was overexposed to nature’s elements and had smoked too many cigarettes. All of these aspects of Aileen were incorporated into the makeup design.

Brad Wyman: Patty was focusing on the performances with Charlize and Christina. Basically, Monster is a two character piece with Charlize and Christina. Even though this was a tight budget, it moved harmoniously.

Clark Peterson: Because we were on a tight schedule, you just couldn’t go back and re-shoot a scene. We had to get it right the first time. Like in the roller-skating rink, we only had the rink for one day. So many things that could have gone wrong... The whole crew, including the cinematographer, was out there roller skating while we’re shooting this scene, and to make matters worse, Charlize and Christina weren’t exactly expert roller skaters. Somehow we got through the day and it became this magical scene where nobody got hurt and we got all the coverage we needed.

Steven Bernstein: Because we were shooting so fast, our typical set up time was around twenty minutes. Basically I moved the lights to the actors.

Mark Damon: I remember in between takes while we were setting up for another shot, Patty would talk with Charlize. Then Charlize would go into her dressing room and pour over the documentaries on Aileen to make sure she got it right. That’s how focused she was on the character.

Steven Bernstein: We used high speed film on this movie for two reasons: 1) to saturate the colors and give it kind of a documentary feel and 2) to give the material a greater depth of focus. We also shot with two cameras, one for the wide shots and the other for repeating the actor’s reactions. It was very helpful.

Mark Damon: Patty didn’t play around with the camera too much. In all actuality, she confided to me that she was scared and this was her first film. After a few weeks I saw the performances were getting quite good and I left it at that. They were so good by then, I let Patty center in on Charlize because I saw in her something that just stood out.

Charlize Theron: I remember Patty telling me to keep it real, especially in the intimate scenes. I was centering in on the character and Christina would crack up when my false teeth would fall out.

Post-Production

Mark Damon: Patty is an artist and like most artists, she has a very strong vision. There are times when you have to curb that a little though. When we were in the cutting room, cutting the scene with Charlize and Christina where Charlize was talking about opening up a cleaning business, I said, "Patty, it’s a powerful scene; but it’s going far too long. We need to cut it." Patty says, "We have to show her where she’s going with this." I said, "Patty, no one cares. We don’t have to have a motive."

She kept going on, when I finally said, "Patty, I understand every word you’re saying. I understand why it’s important psychologically and philosophically for her to open the cleaning business, but it just doesn’t work. We’re going to cut it."

Brad Wyman: We saw how Mark and Patty would get into these moments about the nature of Aileen. One thing in particular was when they were talking about Aileen and her cleaning business. Mark cut it. It was getting too long. Sometimes it would get a little tense; but I think it all came out for the best.

Mark Damon: The steam cleaning aspect held a special interest for Patty. I think this was one of the few arbitrary moments that I said, "No one is going to care." It took two weeks to convince Patty, but she finally came around [to see it that way].

Arthur Coburn: Once I got it, I think there was around, 225,000 feet of film shot, we started pruning through it.

Mark Damon: We shot about 225,000 ft of film. Keep in mind, you might expose 225,000 feet but you may only print 150,000. After the first assembly, it was about two hours and forty minutes. Then we took about an hour off and we knew we had something. It was all there on the screen.

Arthur Coburn: The performances were outstanding, but there were still things we had to do. We had to make people empathize, not sympathize, with Charlize. She was this serial killer. If you go over the top, it won’t work. Under, same thing. It was a very tenuous line. We cut it on Charlize showing the emotions she’s feeling when she was killing. It totally worked.

Mark Damon: One of the crucial things that made the picture stand out was not to make her sympathetic. She kills people for God’s sake. We don’t condone that. There was someone who truly understood the meaning of the movie–I forgot his name–some writer from the Times. He got it. He said we don’t sympathize, but rather empathize with her. Remember in the last scene she does that horrendous thing and kills the last character-which just tears your heart out. He’s about to die and in a last ditch effort, he talks about his wife and his kids. It gnaws at you. This was the balancing act.

Charlize Theron: Patty would say to me, ‘don’t make it sympathetic. We’ll catch your reactions while you’re doing it.’ We had two cameras going at once. And that helped me understand the emotions I was feeling in the scene. I felt very secure with her judgment.

Mark Damon: In the assembly, we knew we had to cut it deep. On most movies, you can lose the feel of the dynamic. The way we cut it, we showed how distraught Aileen was when she [was killing people]. You hated the fact that she did it, but you also understood what forced her to do it. It was a balancing act throughout this entire movie. I attribute the success of the movie to really walking that very fine line.

Distribution

Clark Peterson: Once we got the final product, there was something going around; everybody was talking about Charlize’s performance and the movie as a whole. The movie was that good.

Mark Damon: When we had the final cut, we knew we had something here. So we went out with it. Nobody wanted to do anything with it. I mean nobody. Many specialty divisions turned it down. When Bob Berney [president of New Market Films] said, "We like it. We’ll take it, only if we can do it next year," I thought that was wrong. Everybody was against me, Charlize, Patty, The whole group--even Bob Berney at Newmarket said, "Wait till next year." I said, "No." There's was a certain buzz going around on the picture that was adding up. Who knows what will happen next year. The time was now.

Clark Peterson: Everybody was against us. We went from being proud of what we had done to having no distribution. We went to Bob Berney at Newmarket and he came through.

Brad Wyman: We knew it was good. We went everywhere, from minis to the majors. Luckily the AFI festival was coming up and we wanted to [have Monster’s world premiere there]. I kept lobbying for the closing night spot, but there were a lot of pictures vying for that spot: House of Sand and Fog was one, Calendar Girls was another. They gave us opening night. We had our world opening at the AFI festival–which was pretty apropos for us since Patty and I first met there.

Mark Damon: There would have been a backlash if we had waited for [2004]. The time was now. We used the same tactic as [Marc Forester] did with Monsters Ball. Use the AFI.

The Final Outcome

Steven Bernstein: I remember we were shooting our last day at the Amusement Park where Charlize and Christina are on a Ferris wheel. When we finished the last shot, we took out the champagne and it just felt right. We were this very happy, tight unit. Charlize said this was the happiest experience she ever had working in movies. I agree. Even though this a depressing film, I can honestly say that this was one of my happiest depressions.

Charlize Theron: I can honestly say I’ve never experienced bonding like this before on a movie. It was such a wonderful experience.

Mark Damon: Overall, we’re very happy with the outcome. Patty, Charlize, Christina, everyone connected. We had a very good run. I was especially happy for Patty. This was her show and we helped her achieve it. I remember after the first assembly of the picture, I hugged Charlize and told her she was going to get the Oscar. She told me not to say that. I said, "More than that, we’re going to make sure you get the Oscar." She didn’t want to hear that. It was freaking her out.

Brad Wyman: Patty’s done really well for herself because of this. She’s writing now. And she’s all CAA’ed up. Five agents are taking care of her there. She’s in good hands; I’ll be working with her again. We’re all looking forward to her next script. Actually, we started a film company together. We’re not Ron Howard’s Imagine Films yet, but, we’re getting there.

Patty Jenkins: For me, this was an incredible experience; I learned so much. And I’m glad Charlize came out on top the way she did. She’s a great actress and great friend.

Mark Damon: I remember when Sherry Lansing [president of Paramount Pictures] called me on a Monday after she saw Monster and said, "Mark, this is the independent phenomenon of the year. There are a hundred pictures made, but only a few pictures pull it off. You pulled it off." We did.

Clark Peterson: It was a very successful venture. If there’s one thing we learned about Monster it was that William Goldman was right, nobody knows anything.