CHARLIZE THERON
THE STAR CHANNELS HER BRAVERY INTO A NEW ROLE
How my mum changed my life!
I’ve only just begun.” Accepting yet another accolade in front of her peers in Hollywood, Charlize Theron radiated power, confidence and charm.
Power is something she knows all too well. She was raised by a strong woman – the story of her mum Gerda shooting and killing Charlize’s abusive and alcoholic father in self-defence is now the stuff of grim Tinseltown legend – and she’s become one herself, determinedly raising her two daughters in the same vein.
“My mother made me the brave woman I am today,” says Charlize (44), who was last week presented with a career achievement award at the Hollywood Film Awards.
“I was raised by a mum who was just like, ‘Don’t take any s***.’ I don’t know who I might have been without that. Her philosophy was, ‘This is horrible. Acknowledge that this is horrible. Now make a choice. Will this define you?
Are you going to sink or are you going to swim?’ That was it.”
Almost 30 years on from the shooting, it’s evident Charlize and Gerda chose to swim – and the Oscar winner is channelling some of that inner strength into her latest role, playing real-life conservative Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly in the upcoming flick Bombshell, alongside Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie.
It tells the true story of several well-known US female news personalities and their battle to expose Fox News CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment.
It’s her hardest gig yet, she says – even more so than transforming herself into serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster – as she is portraying such a well-known figure.
“I’ve never played anyone that’s on that level. I’ve played real people, but people that no one knows about. There was less pressure when I did those.”
With a face full of prosthetics and clever make-up – Nicole even walked past a made-up Charlize in the corridor, failing to recognise her – the South African stunner completely transforms into the journalist. However, Charlize says she struggled to reconcile the real Megyn’s conservative views with her own left-leaning outlook.
“This was not an easy person to wrap myself around,” she says. “From afar it looks like we have nothing in common – obviously I’m a liberal.
“But at the same time, as a woman, understanding what [she and her colleagues] went through and understanding what Megyn was facing...
That’s when I emotionally tapped into her because
I started to see similarities between us, dare I say that.”
Both women are also mothers, and Charlize positively bursts with pride at any mention of her children, Jackson (7) and August (3), who are adopted.
“My twenties were really about getting a lot of stuff out of my system – wanting to experience the world, do drugs, travel to Turkey for four months with a backpack. By the time I had kids [in my late thirties], I was ready.”
When she first revealed Jackson’s adoption, she announced she had a son, but Charlize is now raising the child as a girl.
“Yes, I thought she was a boy, too,” she says, “until she looked at me when she was three years old and said, ‘I’m not a boy!’ So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive.
“They were born who they are, and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide.”
Charlize admits she struggles with being a famous parent and tries her best to protect her daughters from the spotlight.
“I so wish that I could be the woman that I am and do the job I do and still fully, fully protect
my children from all of that, and it’s never going to happen.”
Charlize has spent the last few years focusing on career and family, and since splitting from actor Sean Penn in 2015, she’s remained single.
“I haven’t been in a relationship for a very long time,” she says. “I never wanted to get married. I find people somewhat perplexed by that, and also more for women.”
One thing’s for sure – if there was ever a woman more than capable of breaking the mould, it’s Charlize!