Charlize Theron on Hanging Off a Helicopter in ‘The Old Guard 2,’ Possibility of Third Movie and Why She Hasn’t Directed Yet: ‘I Need My Kids to Get Out of the House’

Ask Charlize Theron what her favorite stunt to do in “The Old Guard 2” was and the Oscar-winner doesn’t even blink.

“The helicopter hands down,” she told me at her recent Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Program Block Party fundraiser in Los Angeles. “We did it towards the end, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, if I pull this off, I’m gonna be okay with never doing a stunt again.’ That didn’t last long, but it was intricate. It was psychological. The first two weeks of it was sitting down with the pilot and building trust. It was slow moves. But by the end, I was hanging off a helicopter, so who cares?”

As she was performing the scene, Theron said, “I was hanging in the air, going, ‘I’m going to never be able to stop saying that I hung off a helicopter.’”

The Victoria Mahoney-directed movie, the second installment of the Netflix adaptation of Greg Rucka’s comic book, finds the immortals (Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Henry Golding) trying to save mankind from two of their own Discord (franchise newcomer Uma Thurman) and Quỳnh (Veronica Ngô).

A third movie could be on the horizon with the second film ending on a spectacular cliffhanger. In fact, producer Marc Evans told me in May 2023, “There’s an ending to No. 2 that kind of demands a No. 3, which makes me very happy.”

As for now, Theron, who also serves as a producer on the franchise, said, “We’re going to take a break, take a little breather, and then we’ll come back and decide.”

Theron, who is next set to start filming Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” also said she plans to direct one day: “I’ve always kind of been interested, but I have young children, and to direct is very all consuming…I need my kids to get out of the house.”