Charlize reveals
Why I’m raising Jackson as a girl
Charlize Theron has played a lot of badass roles in her career, but none come close to her part as a fiercely devoted single mum to her children, Jackson, seven, and threeyear-old August.
The Oscar-winning actress, whose romantic comedy
LongShot hits Kiwi cinemas this week, has never made apologies for her eldest son Jackson being photographed in dresses and skirts, as well as wearing braided hair.
And last week, the Tully star lifted the lid on Jackson’s identity. “I actually have two daughters,” Charlize confirms.
“I thought he was a boy too until she looked at me when she was three years old and
said, ‘I am not a boy’ – so there you go!”
The South African-born beauty doesn’t shy away from the gender change, but her protective instincts towards the child she adopted from her homeland as a single mother in 2012 are obvious.
“Jackson is very little and I want to protect her privacy,” tells the Oscar winner. “But yes, now I have two beautiful daughters.”
In LongShot, Charlize plays Charlotte Field, the sophisticated and single Secretary of State in the White House. Comedian Seth Rogen plays an unemployed journalist who crashes an event where he bumps into his first romantic crush at 13, when she was his 16-year-old y
babysitter. Charlotte hires him to be her speechwriter and the couple embark on an affair while on the road, threatening to derail her planned presidential run.
“It was important for me to tell a story that never took that easy route of a girl giving up everything that she has ever wanted for a guy and for love,” says Charlize.
“That’s a huge concept that we were fed in long-established love stories; that if you love somebody enough, you are willing to sacrifice everything. These days, it’s not a healthy thing to put out there.”
Although the statuesque stunner dated actor Stuart Townsend for nine years and was romantically involved for two years with screen legend
Sean Penn before ending their engagement in 2015, she’s never been one to kiss and tell. But given the fact her film is exploring the shifting gender roles in relationships, it struck a chord.
“I’ve definitely encountered a feeling of having to make myself a little bit less in order for my life to be comfortable within a relationship, and then I grew up and said, ‘F*** that!’” she tells. “I’ve dated guys who if you looked at them on paper, you’d be like, ‘Wow, they couldn’t be intimidated by me,’ but then we start dating and guess what?”
Whether this may or may not include her close pal Brad Pitt, she’s quick to shut down rumours. “I’m not really thinking about dating now,” she says. “I’m single, and I have a really full life with my kids and my career.”
In fact, Charlize says she has more than enough love in her life without a man. Three years after Jackson arrived, she adopted daughter August, a US-born African American, in 2015.
“When both my children came into my lives, I wanted to be a mom so badly that it was all-consuming,” she says. “I felt so satisfied doing the work that I wanted to do and coming home to raise these beautiful babies that my life outside being a mom took a
back seat and I wasn’t longing for anything else. But then when your kids get a little bit older, and they are going to school and they don’t need you to go wipe their ass every time they go to the toilet, your life opens up a little bit,” she says.
“But I never entered any dating situation, jumping that far ahead where I was wondering, ‘Can I marry this guy?’ and, ‘Is he going to be good with my kids?’”
The former model admits even movie stars have bad dates. “I donated a dinner with me to be auctioned off at a charity event and this person showed up, and he was obviously a wealthy man, and made a generous donation,” she recalls.
“By the end of the night, I realised that I was actually on a date, whether I liked it or not because that was his narrative. But the whole night he kept saying to me, ‘I don’t really like blondes’ and, ‘I don’t know any of your movies.’
“I guess he thought that was impressive, to be on a date with me and put me down, but at the end of the night, when he wanted my number, I was like, ‘No way, dude!’”