Christina Hendricks recalls moment she 'froze' when asked to play Charlize Theron's mum in new thriller Dark Places

Erm excuse me but you know I'm only three months older than her right?!

Christina Hendricks and Charlize Theron promote Dark Places (Getty Images)

Christina Hendricks has recalled the moment when she was asked to play Charlize Theron’s mum, despite being just three months older than her co-star.

The Mad Men actress had been cast as stripper Krissi Cates in Gillian Flynn’s movie adaptation of Dark Places and rocked up on set ready for filming, only to be asked to fill a completely different role.

Instead of Krissi, a mysterious character withholding secrets about the Day family’s death, Hendricks found herself in the part of Patty Day, mother of 39-year-old Theron’s character Libby.

“I got there and was doing a hair and makeup test and was putting on this long blonde wig, and then they said, ‘Charlize and Gilles [Paquet-Brenner, director] would like to see you on set,” she recalled during a US Weekly interview.

“I thought, ‘Okay, they’re not going to like the wig, I get it’. But they said, ‘We lost our Patty and we were wondering if you want to play Patty Day instead of Krissi. I came at it in a very odd way and it threw me for a loop, but it ended up working out.”

Fans of the Dark Places book will know, however, that Patty’s storyline is told in flashbacks, when she is younger, so this won’t all be as weird and unrealistic as it sounds.

The plot follows Libby’s efforts to unearth disturbing truths 25 years after her family was brutally murdered when she was just seven-years-old.

Dark Places is due for release in August.