Birth Name: Charlize Theron
Nickname/Stage Name: Charlize Theron
Birth Date: August 7, 1975
Genres: Action, Drama
Occupation(s): Actress, Producer
Years Active: 1995 till Present
Net Worth: $160 million
Latest Film: The Old Guard
Personal Life
Charlize Theron was born the only child of road constructionists Gerda (born Maritz) and Charles Theron (27 November 1947 – 21 June 1991).
Her place of birth is Benoni, Transvaal Province (Gauteng Province since 1994) of South Africa. Her French ancestors were among the first Huguenot settlers in South Africa. The Occitan surname Theron (originally written Théron) is pronounced [trɔn] in Afrikaans.
She was raised on her parents’ farm in Benoni, South Africa, near Johannesburg. On June 21, 1991, Theron’s drunken father assaulted both Charlize and her mother, violently assaulting her mother and shooting a gun at both of them while inebriated.
Theron’s mother pulled out her own pistol, fired a shot, and killed him. Her mother was not charged because the shooting was ruled to be in self-defense.
In March 2012, she adopted a transgender girl named Jackson, and in July 2015, she adopted another daughter, August. She had always been interested in adoption as a result of her childhood concerns about overcrowded orphanages.
Theron’s first public relationship was with Craig Bierko, an actor who she dated from 1995 to 1997.
In October 2001, Theron was married to singer Stephan Jenkins for three years and started dating Irish actor Stuart Townsend. They parted ways in late 2009.
She started a relationship with American actor Sean Penn in December 2013. In December 2014, the two were rumored to be engaged. In June 2015, Theron and Theron called it quits.
As of Today, Charlize Theron is single.
Education
Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein) before being sent to boarding school at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg at the age of 13.
She also attended the Joffrey Ballet School.
Career
After modeling in Europe for a year, Theron and her mother relocated to the United States, settling in both New York City and Miami.
She studied as a ballet dancer at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York before a knee injury put an end to her career. In 2008, Johanna Ray, the co-casting director for Showgirls introduced her to talent agent J. J. Harris during her audition.
By the end of the 1990s, she had landed larger roles in well-known Hollywood films, and her career had taken off. Theron starred alongside Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino as the haunted wife of an unusually wealthy lawyer in the horror drama The Devil’s Advocate (1997), which is credited as her breakout film.
She played a companion and guardian of a giant mountain gorilla in the Disney film Mighty Joe Young (1998) and a woman seeking an abortion in World War II-era Maine in the drama The Cider House Rules (1999).
In the 2003 heist film The Italian Job, directed by F. Gary Gray and starring Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Seth Green, and Donald Sutherland, Theron played a safe and vault “technician,” an American homage/remake of the 1969 British film of the same name.
She voiced one of the characters in the animated film Astro Boy, released in 2009, and co-presented the 2010 FIFA World Cup draw in Cape Town, South Africa, on December 4, 2009.
In 2012, Theron featured in two big-budget films as the villain. She starred in Snow White and the Huntsman alongside Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth as Evil Queen Ravenna, Snow White’s evil stepmother, and in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus as a crew member with a secret agenda.
She appeared as the main antagonist of the 2017 action film The Fate of the Furious, and in Atomic Blonde, a film adaptation of the graphic novel The Coldest City directed by David Leitch.
The actress portrayed an overworked mother of three in the black comedy Tully (2018). Critics praised the film and Theron’s performance.
In 2019, Theron produced and starred in Jonathan Levine’s romantic comedy film Long Shot, in which she played a US Secretary of State who reconnects with a journalist she used to babysit.
Theron produced and starred in the Netflix film The Old Guard, which was released in July 2020, opposite KiKi Layne. She will next be seen as Cipher in F9: The Fast Saga.
Awards
Bambi Award (2000)
Chicago Film Critics Association Award (2003)
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award (2003)
National Board of Review Award (2003)
National Society of Film Critics Award (2003)
New York Film Critics Online Award (2003)
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award (2003)
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award (2003)
Screen Actors Guild Award (2004)
Academy Award (2004)
Berlin International Film Festival Award (2004)
Critics’ Choice Award (2004)
Film Independent Spirt Award (2004)
Golden Globe Award (2004)
Hollywood Film Award (2005)
Spike Video Game Award (2005)
Palm Springs International Film Festival Award (2006, 2012, 2020)
International Film Critics’ Circle Award (2010)
Teen Choice Award (2012)
Saturn Award (2015)
MTV Movie & TV Award (2016)
Quotes
“I was always Mama’s girl, and I always felt like her protector.”
“Women have conquered the world. And with everything we go through, it’s about time we had a female president. I don’t think we’re that far away, but it should have happened already.”
“I’ve always been very proud to be a South African and I’ve always been very honest to people about that. And whatever I can do in my power, I promise you, I will do. I don’t think it’s too much pressure. I think it’s our duty as citizens of this country. You don’t have to win an Oscar to do something good for your country. We all can do that. If I can be an encouragement for that I’ll be glad to be that.”
“I’m 50-50 on glamour stuff. I’d rather put on a pair of jeans and get on my Harley and act like a guy.”
Trivia
When she was 15, her father attacked her mother, and her mother shot him in self-defense. He died, but her mother was not charged in the incident.
Her first language is Afrikaans (South African Dutch). She speaks fluent English as her second language.
Nude pictures of her taken in 1994 appeared in the May 1999 issue of Playboy Magazine.
Became a fashion model at age 14.
Named one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 2000.
Movies
Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
The Cider House Rules (1999)
15 Minutes (2001)
Monster (2003)
Aeon Flux (2005)
Hancock (2008)
Astro Boy (2009)
Prometheus (2012)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
The Fate of the Furious (2017)
The Addams Family (2019)
The Old Guard (2020)