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Chapter 1: How did Charlize Theron's family background influence her life?
In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family. Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals, and I wouldn't even call my cousin Alan an upstanding citizen. But it's one thing to know and another thing to understand.
Alan, murder me?
What the hell was Alan thinking? From Serial Productions and The New York Times, I'm Em Gessen, and this is The Idiot. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. I've never had an interview quite like this one with Charlize Theron. I came in wanting to talk about her storied career, which began when she was discovered barely out of her teens at a bank in Los Angeles. By her late 20s, she'd produced, starred in, and won an Oscar for the film Monster.
While she's been in dark comedies like Tully and big-budget fantasy films like Snow White and the Huntsman, I was most interested in her latest turn as an action star in films like Mad Max Fury Road, Atomic Blonde, the Old Guard franchise, and her newest film, Apex, where she kicks butt again, this time while being chased through the Australian wilderness.
While we did talk about her roles past and present, our conversation almost immediately took a revealing turn into some of the most painful chapters in her life, I think surprising us both. That includes her experience growing up in a violent home in her native South Africa, her mother killing her father in self-defense, and the repercussions she's lived with ever since.
Here's my conversation with Charlize Theron. So we're meeting the day after the Oscars, and I was watching your acceptance speech when you won your Oscar for Monster in 2004. And, you know, you're standing on stage, you're tearing up. It's clearly just this very important moment, which, of course, it is for any actor.
Your mom is sitting in the audience and you thank her for all her sacrifices, but When you look back now, what do you think about that young woman and what was happening at that moment? The first thing that came to mind was just, this is something that doesn't happen to girls in South Africa. Like, you know, it's like, I remember looking at a map and I was like, God, we're all...
I remember like feeling very lucky that I made it out here. And like my greatest dream, like my like lottery dream, When would have been to be able to support myself as an actor and not have a second job? Like that was literally what I was like aiming for. Not just aiming for it.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Charlize face while growing up in South Africa?
Like, you know, crazy. You were allowed to kind of run wild. Yes. Craziest thing. Yeah, it was that. I mean, I could take my BMX out and go into, like, the closest little town to go rent movies. I mean, I would tell my mom. Right. But I could do pretty much anything that I wanted to do. Did that make you independent growing up? You just felt like you had the run of the world?
Yeah, I was super independent. I feel like that's not unusual, though. I felt like my friends kind of grew up that way, too. I felt like my independence also had to just come from an emotional place. My house wasn't always stable. And so I felt very responsible to make sure that I was taken care of.
There was this kind of thing that by the time I moved out of the house, I knew how to take care of myself on many levels. Before we get to what was going on inside the house, outside the house is also a lot of instability.
I mean, I was looking at your town and, you know, the mid-1980s in particular were sort of a time of violent uprisings against apartheid that led to a state of emergency in your hometown, Benoni. There was a lot of state repression, resistance.
Yeah.
I mean, you were a very young kid, but do you remember any of that? Did that sort of play into how you saw things? Yeah, you couldn't avoid it. Like, violence and turmoil was something that was like everyday life in South Africa. If you got in the car, if I went to the bank with my mom, that was something that you just saw on the side of the roads.
And for sure, I saw things that I shouldn't have seen at a very young age concerning violence. Because that was just the circumstances. So there was a lot of talk constantly about apartheid. It was a hot topic. Like you'd go to a barbecue. That's what everybody was talking about. They weren't really hiding it from the kids. When you say you saw violence, do you remember anything in particular?
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like vividly. It's like tough stuff to talk about. I was like very young. I saw a man burn inside a car on the side of the road. God. And a lot of people pulling over and trying to help and not being able to help. I also then later, you know, I saw what HIV and AIDS was doing.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: How did Charlize's mother impact her career and personal life?
And they also just, I honestly, personally, for me, the worst thing was they would ice each other. They wouldn't talk to each other for like, there was like a big fight and then they wouldn't talk to each other for like three weeks.
Yeah.
And I didn't have siblings, and the house just went silent. It just went totally silent. No one would even say good morning to each other, and I would be so scared to say something. So for three weeks, no one would talk inside the house. Did you feel like you had to mediate that or you just wanted to not be included in that?
Yeah, I wouldn't because it's South Africa at that time when I was raised was like children should be seen and not heard. You never said anything ever, ever. I remember one time saying something to my dad and it was like I was made very aware like you just don't do that. It's none of your business.
Yeah.
Was he violent towards you? I mean, violent, he was scary in a sense that wasn't like he didn't hit me. He didn't throw me against a wall. But he would do things like he would drive drunk and he would drive scary and they would get into a fight and he would like, you know, you know, a lot of kind of verbal abuse. He was taking, he would become violent on things, you know. But he,
That was also just a lot of threatening language, you know, that just became normal. It really became normal. And so I never, when I was younger, stepped in. When I was around 12, I think I remember my mom, or no, maybe even 13, I remember my mom using the divorce word for the first time. And divorce is just, then was not... we didn't know people who were divorced.
And my parents weren't religious, but it was just culturally one of those things, like you just didn't do that. So that was never kind of even discussed. They had been married for 25 years. And so when she said, like, I think the best thing for us is for me to separate from him. And it doesn't make any sense, but it was so scary because I didn't know what that would look like.
And so in a weird way, I was almost talking her back into like staying because the alternative felt so foreign to me. But I think she knew, and she was trying to figure out ways to... I mean, she sent me to a boarding school specifically because she wanted me to get out of the house. She knew that she had to get me out of the house.
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Chapter 4: What pivotal moment changed Charlize Theron's relationship with her mother?
And I think he felt like, I was kind of going through a stage of not, you know, I wasn't just going to my room anymore. I was maybe getting involved or I would protect her in the sense that I would stand up for her. And I think it built. And that's why he was spending so much time with his family. And we left. But you could just tell.
I just knew that that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for him. I felt it. I felt like something was different. And when we got home, I sat down with my mom and I said, I think you're right. I think you should separate from him. I had never imagined that those words would come out of my mouth. But leaving that house, I knew something was just different. She knew it too.
I knew he was mad at me. So eventually, when he decided to come home, I said to her, please tell him I'm asleep. And so I went into my room. I turned my lights off. Because I just didn't... I was scared. And I could always tell... Like my window faced the drive-in. I could always tell by the way he drove in, like the level of anger, frustration, or unhappiness.
And then the way he drove into that property that night, I can't explain it to you. I just knew something bad was going to happen. She knew it too. To get to the point, he finally broke into the house. He shot through the steel doors to get into the house, making it very clear that he was going to kill us. His brother was with him as well. And yeah, we knew it was serious.
And so by the time he broke into the first gate, my mom ran to the safe to get her gun. She came into my bedroom. And this is, again, one of those crazy things. The two of us were holding the door with our bodies, because there wasn't a lock on it. And he just stepped back and started shooting through the door. And not one bullet hit us. It's insane when you think about it that way.
But the verbal, I mean, the messaging was very clear. I'm going to kill you tonight, tonight. It was verbally very, very clear. You think I can't come into this door? Watch me. And I'm going to go to the safe. I'm going to get the shotgun. Let me show you how I can get through this door. That kind of stuff. Encouragement from the brother.
And my mom, he had walked to the safe and my mom pulled the door open while the brother was still standing there. And the brother ran down the hallway and she shot one bullet down the hallway that ricocheted seven times and shot him in the hand. It's stuff you can't explain. And then followed my father who was by then opening the safe to get more weapons out. And she shot him.
Unfortunately, not an isolated story. You know, these things are prevalent in a lot of families' homes. And I feel like women really get a very, very unfair shake, even I feel like in this country. Women who, nobody takes it seriously, the situation that they're in. And I don't think anybody took my mom seriously. In advance to this, you mean? Yeah, to how bad it was. Right.
You know, when you're dealing with a charming drunk, like who could be very charming and was always looking for buddies to kind of like come join the party. And also a culture that just accepted it. Like it was a culture that that was part of being South African. Like men drink alcohol. I remember my little tiny nephew saying like when people are like, what are you going to do when you grow up?
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Chapter 5: How did Charlize transition from modeling to acting?
So, yeah, it's a good way to, I think, make people not feel alone. And, you know, I'm not haunted by any of this stuff anymore. And, in fact, you've become a campaigner to prevent gender-based violence. Yeah. And you've made it an important issue for you. And you've been very clear that that trauma does not define you.
Yeah.
It does, though, as you mentioned, bind you and your mother, though, and your story. How would you say it changed your relationship to her, that moment? It's a very good question because it did. It really did change our relationship. We were always very close. We felt like a team. But that night changed it because, in retrospect, once I got out of the shock of it—
I realized that she saved my life, which is a big thing. Oh, my goodness. It's the ultimate sacrifice a mother can give. Yeah. And then also the aftermath of like she picked right up. This is, I think, such a testament to her strength because the next morning she sent me to school. She was just like, we're going to move on. Not necessarily the healthiest thing, but it worked for us.
She wanted me to forget about it. She didn't want me to like sit in it. We didn't have therapists around. It wasn't like she was going to say like, go see a therapist. We just didn't have access to those things. So in her head, the best therapy was we got to move on. We can't like sit in this. And did you, I mean, in the sense that did you like lock it away? I did. Yeah.
Because there was a lot of shame kind of surrounding it as well, because I felt like everybody knew how bad it was. Nobody stepped in to help, but everybody knew. And then there was like, and like, I feel like. Kids had this kind of attitude towards me, like, even though their parents were in the same boat, I knew so many of them and their parents to be alcoholics.
There was this kind of energy that was like, well, yours is, like, really bad, like, that that happened, you know?
Yeah.
Not being aware that they were moments away from having the same experience. Do you think it branded, like you felt like they judged you and it kind of separated you from them? Yes. And I actually, there was only one time I became violent and it was, a girl had kind of like taunted me with it. And she was kind of walking around telling everybody how she had seen my dad drunk.
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Chapter 6: What does Charlize believe about the portrayal of women in action roles?
Hmm.
What was it like once you got that opportunity and you were out in the world sort of living it at 16? Yeah, I did well. Did you feel equipped? Yeah, I was so equipped. I mean, I knew how to take care of myself. That's just something my mom instilled in me, my lifestyle instilled in me, my country did. Like, you just, you know how to take care of yourself. You know how to cook.
And even in our school, they teach you how to sew. I mean, I know more than my kids will ever know as adults, you know, about taking care of myself. And I also had this real drive that I wanted to do it on my own terms. Like, I didn't want to go out there. She had given me a credit card, but I was so determined to do this on my own and to not fail because I didn't want to go back.
I didn't want to go back. So I was running from a lot of stuff, and I was happy to escape it. And you come to America and you're a dancer and you're studying at the Joffrey Ballet and you have a pretty serious injury or... It was a built up. A built up thing that you just sort of ended up not being able to dance anymore. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a consistent injury that showed up, my knees.
I was too tall to be a dancer. And by the time I got to Joffrey, I was mainly taking class. I think I was in full denial because I didn't have another plan. I really didn't have a plan for anything after that. It must have been scary. That was when it got scary, yeah. I went into like my first depression. I lived in somebody's basement. I was renting a room in this basement.
It didn't have any windows. And I just remember it was like really cold winter. And I was living in darkness, like complete darkness. And my mom came over. She was really worried about me. And I'll never forget it. We sat on like this crappy couch that was covered with a blanket because it was so disgusting. And we both had a pint of ice cream and we were just eating ice cream.
And she just said, she just said, like, you love movies. You were always watching movies. Always. That's all you did as a kid. You watched movies. And then when you started dancing, she's like, newsflash. You were not a great dancer, but you were the best actor. Like you would go on stage and you could tell the story. She's like, you know how to do that. And you had not thought about that? No.
No, I didn't even know how you went about it. I had no idea how you went about it. And neither did she. I mean, it was like, I'll buy the ticket. You'll go to Hollywood. And we got the ticket. And I was like, oh, it doesn't say Hollywood. It says Los Angeles. I mean, that is how naive we were.
I was thinking a lot about how much you'd experienced from 15 to 18, which is this period in which this all happens. You have this traumatic event. You go to Italy. Then you go to New York. You don't know what you're going to do. Then you come to L.A. You get discovered. You'd lost a career. You'd found a career maybe. I mean, most people experience that in one lifetime.
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Chapter 7: What insights does Charlize share about her physical transformation for roles?
I was excited. I found this like really great group of friends and And I was going out and dance. These were all things that I didn't grow up with. You know, in South Africa, you don't go to a club like you don't go like during. I mean, we had I don't think I was like some South Africans going to be like, that's not true. But my experience was that there wasn't like concerts there.
I didn't go to concerts. Well, there were boycotts, right? Yes, exactly. Sanctions kind of like stopped that. But even prior to the sanctions, and I think even if there were, my mom would never let me go because you'd hear of like crowd bombings and things like that. So this was the first time you were able to really be young. Yes, yes, yes. So in fact, the opposite of what I thought.
No, I was like dancing until the sun came up and then I would go to auditions and be great. Like I was like, I had no sleep. I functioned on no sleep. I ate terribly because that's what I could afford. But I was so happy. I was so happy. So this brings me actually to your new movie because you've been doing a lot of tough roles lately and you are what I consider to be our modern day action hero.
Oh, thank you. Do you consider yourself to be an action hero?
No.
I don't know about the hero part. My words. I'm making a kind of obvious assumption considering where we've started, but I've heard you just say words like independent, self-sufficient. You know, wanting to do things your own way. And it, to me, there's just like a very clear through line to this version of your career. Yeah. Why was that something that you were attracted to?
So I had had little moments in movies where I had to do like an action scene. You know, it was like stunt people would come in and it would be like, oh, we're going to like – there was like a big fight scene that I had in Two Days in the Valley, my first movie that I ever did. But I made the connection pretty quickly to my dance career. And the thing that my mom said was –
in that moment became very clear to me, the fact that I'm a natural storyteller. And if I have to do it through my body, I'll do it through my body. If I can do it through my mouth, I'll do it through my mouth. And I had missed telling story through my body. You know, you said in a recent interview, I have surgery after every movie. You said you wanted to get to the fun stuff.
And so I just have to bring this up before we talk a little bit more about this because... I actually looked into it. Oh, boy. Our whole team did. And we were just—we went down a rabbit hole. After this new movie, Apex, you got elbow surgery. Two elbow—a revision. Yeah, one and a revision surgery, yeah. You also fractured a toe. Yeah. Please fill me in on the stuff that we've missed.
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Chapter 8: How does Charlize Theron define success and resilience in her career?
I mean, I was on bed rest and doing PT. But they were hoping that the disc, I was young enough and the disc is really soft up there that my body would absorb it. And so they didn't want to just do surgery straight away. And I think it was a big mistake because I suffered for eight years and had chronic pain, chronic pain. And my neck was, that disc sat so close to all of my nerves.
that if I did anything wrong with it, anything it didn't like, it would just sit on nerves and I would just be locked, locked for weeks. And I lived my life like that for eight years. And so the Borat thing is funny because I laughed so hard that I locked that disc into the nerves. And it was actually really bad. Yeah, I was about to say, it's not a funny story. That's a horrible story.
It's a funny story now. I mean, we still laugh about it, but... I had to like get flown like on a private plane that night and came back to L.A. And when I had my first baby, I just said to the doctor, I want to have the surgery because I just don't want to live in this place where I have a child and I can't pick her up because my neck is out.
And so I kind of like it was the best thing I ever did. I know a lot of people who've lived with chronic pain and it's really debilitating and really hard to think about anything else. What was it like for you? It was horrible. It's horrible. It's constant fear of like, I don't know if I should do that. And I'm like in the prime of my life. And then it became so...
Like I would just get out of the shower and reach for a towel and it would lock and I would be in bed for five days not being able to move. I think I was so worn down by the end of the eight years that if they weren't going to do it, I was going to like go to a country and get it done where they wouldn't allow it to happen. I was that desperate. I was also, you know, I shared with my doctor.
Because I was on a lot of opioids and things like that. I was about to ask. And you would think with my dad as well, like the worry of addiction. Thank God I don't have an issue with addiction and that I didn't become addicted to them. But I think back now and I just go like that was just so irresponsible in a weird way with myself.
The fact that I was just thinking I can kind of, I would be able to control this somehow. You know, if that were my reality, I would then probably not want to throw myself and become an action star. I would want to protect myself from injury and those kinds of issues. Why do you think you went in the opposite direction? I think... I wasn't going to let anything take away from my life.
There's a spirit about me that, and I think some of it maybe has to do with the fact that I experienced so much death early on. I'm very aware that time runs out really quickly and that time can run out as soon as I walk out of this building. I can cross a street and it's done. I'm so hyper aware of that. I live my life every single day like that.
If I lay in bed one day, I'm like, I am missing a day in my life. But I was never going to be, I didn't want to live like a safe life because of that. I mean, I do live a very safe life. I'm not a reckless person. I think people think I am, but I'm not a reckless. I get scared. I'm not reckless.
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