Maybe we’re just starved for decent interviews with Charlize Theron, but this WSJ. Magazine interview is one of the best pieces I’ve ever read with Charlize. I don’t ever think of her as a celebrity given to interview confessionals, but in this WSJ. Mag piece, she’s sassy, funny, tearful and honest. Sort of. Like, I don’t think she’s being completely honest about Sean Penn, but I do think she’s trying to be tactful and not throw him under the bus, especially since they’re going to promote their movie together in just a few months. You can read the full WSJ. Magazine piece here. In includes details like… her son Jackson (whom she calls “Jax”) is still obsessed with Frozen (he wants to be Princess Anna), and Charlize still can’t say anything nice about Tom Hardy. Some highlights:
Demanding equal pay to Chris Hemsworth on The Huntsman: “Look, when I saw that Jennifer Lawrence made what she made in comparison to Bradley Cooper, I was definitely shocked… The way people have been writing about it, it sounds like the Sony hack was what motivated me. My feeling would have still been, If we’re going to do it again, shouldn’t we start on equal footing? Because, trust me, we weren’t on equal footing there.”
Clashing with Tom Hardy during Mad Max: “From what I hear, he’s not like that on every movie—I hear he’s had good experiences. Maybe the movie is what it is because we struggled so much with each other, and those characters had to struggle so much with each other. If we were chum-chum, maybe the movie would have been 10 times worse.”
Working in Africa again on The Last Face: “My son has spent more time in South Africa and Namibia than in America,” she says, a little unsettled by that fact.
Growing up in South Africa: “I have a lot of things I should probably sort out in therapy about my relationship with my country. Because it’s affected me way more than I’ve ever acknowledged. And it was only when I got older that I started realizing that I had a lot of anger; there was a lot of unresolved stuff—apartheid, health care, AIDS, poverty—that still very much affects me… It makes you realize that the circumstances of your formative years, it leaves a real scar—it marks you. It’s the one thing that gets me really angry, really emotional. It’s a lot of f—ing suffering, and unnecessary suffering. And just people getting the s— kicked out of them for a very, very long time,” Theron says, overcome by a rush of tears. She breathes deeply, trying to hold them back. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Wanting more children: “I always knew I wanted more kids… I don’t know. But I always knew I wanted more than one. Always. When you’re with somebody and it comes to kids, you can’t bulls—t. And so I was always very honest with Sean that I wanted to have more kids. And he was very supportive.”
Stories about Sean Penn adopting Jackson: “We were very, very new in a relationship. The stories saying that Sean was going to adopt Jackson and all of that were not true. It’s not something that happens in 18 months. You can’t do that to a child. So there was an understanding that I was a single mom with a very young boy who I had to put in a situation where he understood that Mommy dates but that he does not have a father, you know what I mean? You have to be very careful and very honest about that stuff. And Sean was great with all of that. And in my honesty about wanting to have more kids, there was an understanding that a relationship had to go somewhere before it was going to be—what you hope for, which ultimately did not happen. I couldn’t foresee that, but that stuff takes time, and I think it’s my responsibility as a mother to protect my child from that. And so we had a very clear understanding. He knew that I was thinking about filing for another adoption but that we weren’t filing together.” She laughs. “My publicist’s going to kill me; I’m already saying too much.”
She claims she didn’t ghost Penn: “There is this need to sensationalize things. When you leave a relationship there has to be some f—ing crazy story or some crazy drama. And the f—ing ghosting thing, like literally I still don’t even know what it is.” She shrugs and shakes her head. “It’s just its own beast. We were in a relationship and then it didn’t work anymore. And we both decided to separate. That’s it.”
WSJ. Magazine notes that both Tom Hardy and Sean Penn declined to comment for this piece, which I guess makes sense. Charlize isn’t going to manufacture stories about getting along with Tom Hardy (they clashed, big time), nor is she going to dump out EVERYTHING that happened with Penn. But I do think something BIG happened between Penn and Theron. Maybe she didn’t “ghost” him, but when it was over, it was really f—king over and it was sudden. She cried at several points in this interview, when she was talking about her kids, and Penn and South Africa. She seemed… I don’t know, different in this piece. Softer. But still badass.
Photos courtesy of WSJ. Magazine.
Re: wage gap and JLaw: This is why it’s SO IMPORTANT to ignore all the social pressure to “be nice”, “go along to get along”, “don’t look like a feminazi”, “don’t upset the boys.” Because when we don’t talk about this stuff, things don’t change. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
And her reply about Penn is incredibly diplomatic. Good for her for prioritizing her child.
^^Here, here!
It is interesting that when talking about wages she talks about Lawrence and Cooper because I think their relative wages were reasonable. Adams/everyone and Lawrence/Renner were the relevant comparisons. I like to think it is respect for Adams since she has never been keen to talk about it and regard for Renner, who is apparently a close friend. I am all for putting the boot into Cooper, he has got off very lightly being a producer and constant presence on a movie that treated Amy Adams and others so badly. I love Amy Adams.
I also like that, whist still being diplomatic, she isn’t backing down on Hardy. If Amy Adams can stand up against someone like David O’Russell, others should be prepared to stand up against people like Hardy.
Interestingly the journalist who criticized Hardy also caused a stir by saying early on that there was a problem with Batman and Superman. He was roundly attacked for both stories, with people questioning he sources and/or honesty. He seems like a good bet to me.
It would be. Ice if Charlize could just say,”I rolled over in my sleep and screamed because I thought there was a gnome in my bed, but it was Sean.”
My god what does it take for women in this industry to earn the right to cover themselves. I can’t with those cover-in-panties anymore. The interview is good. What was the clash with Hardy about? I must have missed that.
Right? Regarding Sean Penn – liar, liar, pants completely burned off on the cover.
https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/blogs/celeb-news/charlize-theron-on-clashing-with–mad-max–co-star-tom-hardy—we-drove-each-other-crazy-231702447.html?ref=gs
According to Mad Max’s DP,one of the male lead actors was totally unprofessional ( always in late of 2 hours) and had many clashes with everyone
Merci 🙂
Read the yahoo article, and another by Mad Max’s dp, and can’t find any comments about male lead actors arriving 2 hours late or acting unprofessional. The yahoo article intimates that while they didn’t like each other, hardy and theron do respect each other. Would you recall where you read that about the male leads in mad max?
@Johanna.
I didn’t find the podcast with Mad Max’s DP about the unprofessional and always late lead actor.( I don’t remember where I listened it)
I have a neighbor who is movie journalist in Belgium who said me once that the last time Hardy was professional on a set was on TDKR .
And what is with the sweater/undies combo outside? Cold enough for a sweater, but too warm for pants. I thought at first it was some sort of thong sweater bodysuit.
+1. I’m so confused. If it’s hot enough for a bikini why is she wearing a sweater? If it’s cool enough for a sweater, why is she outside in her panties?
I do like both of those sweaters though. I’m just not sure I have any panties to go with them.
You do understand that movie stars don’t STYLE a photo shoot like this? There are people paid to present the star w/an idea and supply the outfits.
Sometimes they paint someone blue. Do you think the movie star brings some blue paint w/her?
She probably could turn down their ideas but it would just make her look bad because the same mag. that’s printing the article is supplying the stylists.
There is another photo in the set that is a white combo (with long sleeves and undies, reclining on a weathered chair).
Imagine a guy posing like that (fully covered top with briefs). Makes no sense, especially to take an actor/actress seriously.
Really? I think she looks AMAZING. Sexy and sensual but in a mature way, if that makes any sense. I think the pics are very classy.
*shrugs*
Yeah, she looks hot. If I had a body like hers I’d show it off. I have this crazy theory some women actually like their bodies and like feeling sexy. Charlize has mad sex appeal and she knows it.
Well I think some men like their bodies and feeling sexy, yet we don’t see their bulge in every cover. Why is that? And of course she looks amazing, that was never in question. I think it’s very possible to be sexy with clothes on. This cover just look stupid to me.
You talked about the “right of women to cover themselves”, and I said no rights were infringed because it’s perfectly possible Charlize actually wanted to show skin.
I think it’s no hazard that every women in this industry from Z to A list feels compelled to show skin on the regular, no matter what the subject at hand is.
What Josefina said.
Maybe Charlize just liked the outfit? She is many things, but a pushover is not one of them. Aside from the fact that she’s a well-respected and successful actress who’s earned the right to wear whatever the hell she feels like.
You’re making a lot of assumptions when really maybe she just felt like showing her legs off. TBH I’d probably walk around in my damn undies all day if my legs looked like that.
Yes! I was actually shocked and then incredibly disappointed when I scrolled down and saw what else she was wearing besides the turtleneck.
This sweater + undies combo has got to be the result of some massive focus group everyone in mag publishing seems to know about. The focus group found that you can boost sales by 10000% by putting the sweater + undie combo on every single cover lady.
Crazy right? Does the wage gap mean that women can’t afford to buy pants?
Man, I so get what she means about her formative years. That experience isn’t limited to just your relationship to your country, though. It’s more like your relationship to your imagined future. You can be raised a certain way, to have certain expectations and understandings of the world, and something can happen to change all that. You end up mourning the life you thought you were going to have. It’s hard to explain, but it sounds like she’s kind of mourning the country she thought she had when she was younger but was forced to realize never existed. Reality and her relationship to it was far more complex. That’s a tough realization–a tough loss–in your early teens.
I tell you, those formative years affect you for the rest of your life.
Really well put.
–TheRealPinky
“It’s hard to explain, but it sounds like she’s kind of mourning the country she thought she had when she was younger but was forced to realize never existed.”
That’s exactly how I’m feeling about my home state of NC right now. I’ve always considered it home, always loved it and always defended it. And now they pass this legislation legalizing discrimination against LGBT citizens. Did I imagine the place I grew up in? Was it always this backwards and hateful and I just didn’t see it? Or has it changed? I can’t figure it out, but I feel like I’ve lost a piece of myself and I’ll never get it back.
I feel the same way about my city, London. Some days I’m really proud of the old girl and other days I’m so ashamed of her it breaks my heart.
Oh GNAT this is so poignant. I lived in NC for some time and loved the way of life and scenery, but came to see some cracks under the surface that maybe ultimately allowed this expression of hate to surface. I had to read more about NC history and the South generally to come to some kind of understanding. It wasn’t easy and it’s hard to reconcile the very different elements and regions in the state. There’s some really great stuff and some really horrible stuff, and I had to come to terms with their both being real. It’s almost a case study for the US as a whole right now, and it’s definitely been targeted by big right-wing money (Art Pope and friends). I have to hope it will return to at least purple in the future, but right now this will slow business and in-migration. The Moral Majority movement is still fighting away. Enjoy the dogwoods … probably blossoming around now, or is it already on to the azaleas?
Agree and I think I can relate to her feelings. I’m from Mexico, I love my country but it gives me the worst feelings to see all that is happening here (narcos violence, useless government, people’s apathy…) and the feeling I can’t do anything about it. And also how we are currently perceived by the rest of the world. It is just terribly sad
GNAT, that awful legislation was rushed through by some powerful people who are idiots; it will NOT last, because the majority of people in NC will not support it. Children are often unaware of wider social issues, but NC has a lot to recommend it.
YES. This was so perfectly articulated and really resonated with me. Well done, GW.
Also, GW, beautifully expressed. And I think those losses of dreams and expectations can happen throughout adult life as well. For example, an older couple whose long-held dreams of traveling in retirement are lost when one gets sick or dies. Life seems to be a series of making new plans and coming to terms with lost hopes and unfulfilled parallel lives.
oh, glad that resonated with people, I kinda wondered if it made sense to anyone else. I’ve spent a lot of time in my 30s reflecting on two major events (the first in my early teens) that shaped all of my lived experiences as an adult. I now understand they were events of loss. It’s hard to articulate exactly what that first loss was–I think it was the loss of a context in which I understood my relationship to the world around me. Anyway, I just really empathized with Charlize saying she realized, when she was older, how much anger she had as she reflected on her formative years. It’s an anger that comes from realizing what you didn’t understand about your own life and yourself really…
I dunno, but whoever said “give me a child until the age of 7 and he’ll always belong to Rome” nailed it. I feel like all of who we are as adults organizes, in one way or another, around our childhood experience.
important reflections — you’re like our group therapy session!
Being more about public health, I think a lot about later-life health issues stemming from childhood. Poverty – malnutrition – environmental toxins – gaps in vaccinations (cough, ahem) – uncorrected musculoskeletal issues – inappropriate health care or medication – lack of dental care, vision correction etc. – the list could go on and on but the consequences can be expressed throughout the life span. Sometimes when people get older it’s like forensic work finding the root of things.
@WATP, that makes sense. Even just the way we resolve to be not like our parents, or to marry a man/woman who isn’t like our father/mother, or to choose one path to fulfillment over another. I mean, it makes sense that we make those choices in light of the way we’ve seen others make them. It’s just funny how much of that can be traced right to your formative years. We really are just a product of that environment, in one way or another.
Yup. My mom always says that we never really escape our childhood. She’s 70 years old and still feels the impact of growing up in an abusive household.
I always joke that being raised in a loving and secure family is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing for obvious reasons and a curse because who the hell can I blame for all my problems? LOL I gotta straight-up OWN that sh*t 😉
Well Kitten, good for your mother in making it stop in her generation and creating a loving and secure family. Too many people think abuse survivors perpetuate the abuse as adults but that’s a total misreading of statistics; far more often than not, they work really hard to create healthier families.
And survivor or not, we all have to own our s–t. Some people just have better explanations than others. : )
@WATP-My parents both grew up in abuse and I they’re both my heroes for overcoming it and making such a wonderful life for me and my big bro. I’ll never stop having gratitude for that. Thanks for the kind words 🙂
Kitten, your family sounds like a miracle. IT is so hard to break out of cycles of abuse, addiction, dysfunction. I feel as if it is my job to do that for my children, but it means leaving some family behind, and being scapegoated in the process. If this is the only thing I accomplish in my life, I can call myself a success.
Bless all y’all. I am touched by what I read here and the support offered to strangers.
@greenieweenie
I doubt it’s some idealized romantic picture she had. Hers was a tumultuous upbringing – domestic violence, her mom eventually shooting and killing her abusive father.
As I recall she seemed a bit clueless in her old interviews, the last vestiges of apartheid entitlement came across. I remember one old interview shortly after she got to America, where she was bemoaning her own lack of opportunities in this new NON-apartheid less racist less killer less abusive south Africa. That interview made me dislike her for a long time.
What I think she is crying for, is how hate really destroys us all, and how nothing in that environment can grow or thrive or be good. She might be thinking of her own family, the violence that begat violence. As usual, it’s a waste. She might have thought she was privileged, but in reality those societies end up ruining and damaging the perpetrators and the victims. She knows that better than anyone.
I always thought she seemed detached in her descriptions of her past. Sounds like she’s working through it–I bet parenthood made that happen.
Thought I’d come back and say (just because I think the topic is interesting), I’m not exactly talking about a loss of innocence where you have this moment that you realize the world is not as you thought it was.
It’s hard to explain. For example, the second event I alluded to in my comment above was when my childhood home (was) burnt down with everything my family and I ever owned in it. That was always unmistakably a loss and I always saw it as symbolic of a family member(the arsonist)’s mental collapse. But I wasn’t until my 30s that I started to personalize it as one of a series of losses that had collectively shaped my adulthood. It wasn’t simply an event that happened to me–when I look back on my childhood as a whole, I don’t just see random events anymore. I can see a series of choices made by my parents connecting a lot of uncertainty, pain, self doubt and difficulty together. It’s all interconnected and the realization actually made me a lot angrier about everything…and it definitely makes you question your capacity to be a parent. It sounded like Charlize was having a similar experience, although she was piecing it together around choices made by her government/society too.
when he spoke of their relationship, he spoke of it as a big love. i would be devastated in his shoes to read how little it appeared to mean to her, even if she is choosing her words so that she doesn’t create drama.
I guess I have a more positive spin on what you are perceiving. From her words, I get the impression that she was upfront with him, even while they were deep in the new love stage, that when it came to practical things, her role as a mother was always going to play a deciding role in their relationship and where it went. It does sound like she had some sort of condition for him that would need to be met to see the relationship become more permanent/formalized. We can only speculate on what that condition might have been (Anger management? Cut back on drinking? An unfair ultimatum like cutting his kids or ex wife out of his life?), but I like to give Charlize the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t blindside him with its existence.
i dont see anything suggesting it didnt mean something to her at the time. But then I detest how celebrities run around being all nostalgic about dead relationships. If you were each others soul mates, you would have worked it out (@ Mindy, Garner and friends). Her attitude is much healthier and more in line with how average Joes view ex relationships.
Who is Mindy?
Mindy Kaling & BJ Novak who play at “soul mates” who arent together. It irritates because if you really loved each other you would work out your issues and be together. They didnt, and I was saying they should do like Charlize, quit idealising that relationship and move on.
Yeah, I agree with you about the soul mates thing and I love Mindy a lot but had no idea about the kind of dynamic she has with Novak.
Well, when she was in the relationship she spoke of him as if she was really in love. She is now speaking of him many, many months later, and I felt she mentioned him a lot for an ex, which shows me she really felt deeply for him, but for reasons we don’t know it ended. I imagine after working with him on set for months and more of his irrational behavior coming out, he just became exhausting. I never bought into he hit her or anything. Sean is just a bizarre thinking guy and he has to be exhausting. And when the bloom was off the rose, it was over. She had kids to worry about. He probably wanted to adopt the second child with her and caused a stink about that.
Rather, I see it as a mature deflection of inappropriate interest in her personal life. Besides, how much ownership should she have of Penn’s reaction/feelings?
Yup THIS is exactly how I took it as well.
Love is not rational. Sean Penn always has words to say about all the woman he is involved with, BUT where Charlize was concerned, there was a notable change. He wasn’t just saying the words. He spoke of her as someone who had touched something very deep within him.
We have no reason to question the veracity of her statements, but it is devastating for someone to describe you as a soulmate and have the response be ‘i was upfront about my situation.’ That is devastating no matter who you are.
PS: i am not saying that she didn’t love him. You can love someone without being in love with them. Equally lots of relationships have one party being in love whilst their object of love only loves them. an unequal relationship. And that’s what i see here.
I don’t see that. I understood upfront about my situation to mean her son and wanting more kids. She did say he was the love of her life. I don’t think it is was one sided like you seem to think it is.
Charlize seems distant in interviews and guarded. Her words always come across as fiercely self protective so perhaps she didn’t want to reveal too much.
That said I do think he was more into it and that she is the type that when it’s over for her she moves on.
@FingerBinger, I agree with you. I was surprised back when they were in a relationship how forthright she was about her love for him. She definitely was all aglow about him back when they were involved.
I took it to say she was upfront about her kid and her desire for more children. I would hope she did have conversations with a new relationship about all of that.
If I remember correctly they BOTH called each other “the love of my life” and of course it was too soon. Specially if speaking about such a volatile individual like Penn, you wait more before you call him that way publicly. I feel for Charlize, because she comes across like someone who really wanted a family life for her kids, she’s strong but as the crying suggest, at the same time very vulnerable and she must be really hurting. Its also really hard for a 40year old woman in hOllywood find a real partner to raise your kids with, no matter how beautiful and stunning you are. Money in this case is a detriment: men in Hollywood tend to feel emasculated when they’re with a wealthier woman, they always leave unless they’re some sort of goldiggers, that is.
I like this woman and her refusal to cowtow. She is also too generous to Tom Hardy with that “I hear he is not like that on every movie”. I’m not even in the industry but even I know his reputation. The man is an ass.
But wouldn’t we here more often about it then?
Actually, there are enough stories about him. Plus, his response to some of the stories is evidence in itself.
We do hear about it and that in itself is very telling. Bad behaviour from actors of that callibre is generally over looked. Not so with Hardy because he crosses some pretty major lines. He has actually hit co-workers on sets (Revenant, Lawless and Reckoning). His ass reputation has been common knowledge for years, so much so that he has had to acknowledge it in interviews himself. Not that he will be going the Katherine Heigl way anytime soon. He is handsome and white and male, that means he’ll continue to book work as long as he wants it.
We hear about it enough lol.
@Naya: “Not that he will be going the Katherine Heigl way anytime soon. He is handsome and white and male, that means he’ll continue to book work as long as he wants it.” To say nothing of talented. That’s the one that really matters.
@Chelsea But “talent” is an extremely subjective concept and one that people subconsciously attach more naturally on white guys (Oscar so white bears me out here). In fact I wish I could write an IT algorythm that would sift through all the comments on this site and arrange number of “she is untalented” against “he is talented” sentiments. I bet its something like 95 percent of actresses have no talent versus 95 percent of actors are very talented.
But “talent” aside, he isnt a major box office draw but he is a Hollywood pet project, they’ll keep throwing work at him regardless. Even Mel Gibson is scoring movie financing again.
‘I’m not even in the industry but even I know his reputation.’
By reading blogs
And actual accounts from people
That’s what a “reputation” is. It’s not a first hand account of someone.
Man, my stomach is never going to look like that.
Woman is 40 years old and I could look at her all day… it is so weird! She is just compellingly beautiful in my eyes.
I do agree with jeanpierre though, why does that pulling the shirt to the “panties” picture exist in this spread for the WSJ? This is an honest question. I will pay $800 to anyone who can explain that picture’s place in this article.
Why did she agree to that picture, or does she not care and why not? It bothers me but that is just my opinion. If I was 40 and talking about how awesome and successful I was, I would not want a picture like that to accompany what I said.
Charlize looks stunning but don’t care about her personality.
Didn’t she say something about her and her family not supporting Apartheid a few years ago?
They shouldn’t have supported apartheid…I don’t think I’m getting what you’re saying.
–TheRealPinky
Sorry forgot a word there – she said that her and her family didn’t agree with the Apartheid being abolished.
No. This person is always trying to put something negative put there about Charlize. Mad that she is getting some positive comments for once?
Sweety – Google it, it’s right there.
I don’t like Charlize and I don’t have to – if you support a woman who is known to be bitc*y towards people then go ahead.
And no don’t give a damn about if the comments are positive or negative.
It seems to me that you are the one with issues especially about my comments.
Maya why phrase it as a question you already knew the answer to? Why should we google it? Just post the link.
@Fingerbender: when I first wrote the comment – it was a question. Then I googled to double check if it was correct.
And no – I don’t have to add the link. If you want to see it then you do the work.
@Maya, I don’t understand why you brought up the topic if you were unwilling to back up your statements.
I googled Charlize Theron apartheid, and this is what I found.
“South Africa was very well-deserving of its demonization. But I was raised by a family that did not believe in apartheid,” the actress tells the New York Daily News. “My parents had a road construction company, and everybody lived on the farm with us. So I was raised from infancy with all these different black cultures, including Zulus.”
So as you can see she claims her family was AGAINST apartheid.
Just admit that you were wrong.
@Maya I don’t care. You brought it up.
So in other words Maya can’t back it up. If you hate her so much why are you so invested in reading about her? She is not known to be nasty to people. She just doesn’t take any crap which is why she’s only clashed with Tom Hardy. Every movie she is on she makes friends with Emily Blunt being the latest.
@Goldie
……..“My parents had a road construction company, and everybody lived on the farm with us. So I was raised from infancy with all these different black cultures, including Zulus.”…….
Is this a statement against apartheid? Certainly not.
@dagdag, I agree. As I stated below, I don’t think Charlize’s comment automatically proves that her family was against apartheid. However, Maya was making it sound like she openly bragged about supporting apartheid. She claims that her family was against it. Only they know the truth.
@Goldie: see Dagdag – she interpreted it the same way as me.
And I wasn’t insinuating anywhere that she was bragging out it. That’s your own fault if you got that out of my comment.
@Tara: someone just posted the link – do take a look.
And yes she is known to be rude against people and there are lots of stories out there. For the record – I am not including Tom Hardt at all because I don’t think she was rude to him.
@ Maya, you said “she said that her and her family didn’t agree with the Apartheid being abolished.”
Now people are calling you out and asking you to back that statement up. The quote above is neither for nor against apartheid and certainly doesn’t prove your original claim- that she and her family supported apartheid.
She’s said she and her family were against it, and there’s nothing I’ve seen that’s made me think otherwise.
Someone posted a link you say…?
@GinaS, Thank you for saying what I was trying to say.
What stories? Tabloids don’t count. They’ll report a story about neighbors hating Meryl Streep. So if you don’t know her and there is no proof of her being nasty to people, then who are you to judge? I bet you’d want to disregard all the many positive comments about her from people who actually know her and worked with her.
“But I was raised by a family that does not believe in Apartheid” kind of answers the question for you right there.
I mean. Both the US and UK were onboard the Apartheid train for a good long time. Let’s not rewrite history and act like there was a line in the sand splitting all the good guys from all the bad guys–and *gasp* how dare Charlize’s family not be on the good side (although apparently they were).
@GW, Good point, To be honest, I thought Charlize sounded a bit naive in the quote that I posted. Just because her family employed black people does not mean they were against apartheid. And even if they supported it, it doesn’t mean that Charlize’s opinions couldn’t evolve as she grew older and moved away from her family. But she at least claimed that they were against it, which contradicted what the other poster was saying.
A second hand citizen is a second hand citizen no matter how “good” the ruling class treats them.
She’s stunning
I’ve always had a soft spot for her, loved her since The Devil’s advocate and I enjoy her movies. I can’t understand why some can’t stand her because of the way she appears but I guess a RBF will do that to you and I can relate. She’s never created drama in her personal life I’m comparison to others. She said a lot without having to give all the details and that’s fine by me.
@Dhavynia I love her in The Devil’s Advocate! That’s when I became a fan. “Vanity. . .is definitely my favorite sin”
I absolutely adore her. She is very diplomatic about Penn and is a greater person than i could have been. Same with Hardy. What was worse about the Hardy thing was how everyone jumped on her throat and was like.. well she is an ice queen.. she must be doing everything wrong!!!!!
Just like they jumped on Drew McWeeney when he lost his temper and twitted about what a d**k Hardy was. OK, he shouldn’t have lost his temper, but that is human and this was a result of being treated badly over a number of years. People are so willing to give him a break because they find him attractive, like him as an actor and he knows how to butter the public up in interviews. To me, nothing is more important than the opinion of people who work with actors and the negative comments are really piling up on Hardy.
Great interview, she’s a very interesting person.
I’m an unabashed Charlize fan so yeah…loved this interview and I’m obsessed with these pictures of her. Sigh.
She is really stunning.
Charlize is visually stunning and an Oscar winner. She handled the Sean Penn and Tom Hardy questions very well.
Charlize is an outstanding actress, but folks seem to forget that fact because she is so incredibly beautiful.
I wonder if C. will have to deal with the SP questions for years to come. I still think Charlize dumped Sean. We will probably never know the full truth of the matter.
I think she is fantastic too, Kitten! Of course, she is gorgeous (so much so that I almost want to dislike her) but she is also interesting, charming, private, and, sometimes less than a sweetheart…..I like all of that!
To me she is the most beautiful in hollywood, a goddess: stunning, intelligent, articulate, incredibly talented and a badass… man I am in awe! I always am!
That woman is a living goddess gracing us with her presence!
I think she is the most badass woman in Hollywood right now and the most beautiful. People want to paint her as an ice queen because she looks like one and she’s a tough woman, but I see her as a strong, badass woman who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I like that. That’s how Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn were. I don’t like these phony actresses who try too hard to kiss up to the public.
Well said, agree 100%.
Wow, I didn’t know so many here liked her. Yay!
I love her too! I have so much respect for what she went through & being a strong a$$ woman. I know the reputation she has as an “ice queen” but I side eye that since she is a strong woman & Tara said it well. I hate the expectation that women should run around pleasing everyone, smiling & hugging or else they are a bit*h.
Reading between the lines she wanted to adopt again and Sean was a stumbling block in that process. I believe his criminal background made it difficult, so she put giving another child a home over a man, which speaks a lot to her character.
that’s a great insight, I forgot Penn has a criminal record that could have been a problem for the adoption.
Really interesting angle that I didn’t think of.
Interesting. I hadn’t considered that.
They were friends for more than 20 years before becoming a couple…I don’t think she was unaware of whatever record Penn has.
But she probably didn’t know if it would interfere with her adoption. That’s what I’m saying. She badly wanted to adopt again and it’s such a strict process when you adopt in the States.
I think she’s trying to be very measured in what she’s saying about him, and that’s a good thing. This is more open than she usually is in interviews.
It really, really bugs me that the studio thought she should take less money than Hemsworth – Charlize WAS that first movie, and from the commercials of this one, it’s all her and Emily Blunt. Hemsworth quite honestly hasn’t not proven himself financially able to carry any film that doesn’t have him in his Thor outfit. But they throw more money at him than her. Pfft.
I agree. Hemsworth can’t carry a movie, and he’s getting more than her? Unbelievable.
It makes no damn sense. She’s an award winning actress with a great body of work. It’s unbelievable!
Yeah, Charlize should’ve actually been paid MORE than him. Talent aside, Hemsworth is just not a ticket seller outside of his Thor clothes.
I honestly don’t even think he carries Thor that much. The Marvel brand keeps it afloat.
Absolutely. It’s disgraceful that studios keep try to make happen these pretty faced actors just because they look good shirtless: at least treat them like they treat the female pretty faces: like accessories. Chris Pine, Hemsworth, Chris Evans…you name them…zero talent and STILL get leading man roles and leading man paychecks…it’s absurd!
She has the body of a goddess. I watched Cider House Rules the other day, and they had her nude stretched out on a bed on her stomach, and her back and great ass and long shapely legs was a vision with her five foot ten body stretched out over the bed. I was so envious.
She looks like Robin Wright in those pictures.
She does! I’m completely obsessed with Robin Wright in House of Cards and reading her interviews she comes as strong and smart as Charlize. Two different stories for two different women but certainly Penn has a type, as they resemble both physically and personality wise: both Wright and Theron share also the perception of being a little bit of a tough, and bitchy, even Kaiser wrote about Wright being not pleasant but I don’t know what rumor was that about…and we know about Charlize rumors…
I think she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She comes off as very intelligent and honest without exposing herself.
I would love to hear her speak more on her growing up in Africa. She has a lot to tell and people need to hear it because we tend to not think about the atrocities we don’t see in our own little bubbles.
Not only did she witness her mom shoot her alcoholic dad dead, but she witnessed a man blowing his brains out in a car that had caught fire. She saw a lot of horrific things at a young age that she probably uses for her acting.
Since I can’t seem to meet a nice guy in my town, I think I’ll just have a relationship with my country.
Didn’t she adopt a baby girl late last year?
Yes. Her name is August. She adopted her in August of 2015. She is an African-American little baby girl she adopted here in the United States.
Her son Jackson was adopted from her home country of South Africa.
Jackson was born in America his adoption was finalized by a judge in Louisiana.It was a rumor he was from South Africa.
I always wished she and Keanu would hook up. I thought they had great chemistry in the movies they did together. And could you imagine a biological child they would make?