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Violence Shaped Charlize Theron. It Doesn’t Define Her.

I’ve never had an interview quite like this one with Charlize Theron. I came in wanting to talk about her storied acting career, which began after she moved on her own to New York to be a...

NYTIMES 입력 2026.04.18 18:16 0

Violence Shaped Charlize Theron. It Doesn’t Define Her.

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The Interview

Violence Shaped Charlize Theron. It Doesn’t Define Her.

Credit...

Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times

The Interview

Violence Shaped Charlize Theron. It Doesn’t Define Her.

Credit...

Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times

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Lulu Garcia-Navarro

April 18, 2026

I’ve never had an interview quite like this one with Charlize Theron. I came in wanting to talk about her storied acting career, which began after she moved on her own to New York to be a ballet dancer, quit because of an injury and was discovered barely out of her teens at a bank in Los Angeles. By her late 20s she had produced, starred in and won an Oscar for the film “Monster,” in which she completely transformed herself to play the serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Since then, she’s been in dark comedies like “Tully” and big-budget fantasies like “Snow White and the Huntsman,” but I was most interested in her latest turn as an action star in films like “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the “Old Guard” franchise and her newest film, “Apex,” in which, at age 50, she kicks butt again, this time while being chased through the Australian wilderness.

But while we did talk about her roles past and present, our conversation almost immediately took a revealing turn. Theron has spoken publicly about the fact that her mother killed her father in self-defense when she was a teenager. But when we talked about it, and the repercussions she’s lived with ever since, memories of her childhood flooded in with a vividness that surprised us both.

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I was watching your acceptance speech when you won your Oscar for “Monster” in 2004. You’re standing onstage, tearing up. Your mom is sitting in the audience and you thank her for all her sacrifices. When you look back now, what do you think about that young woman?

The first thing that came to mind was just, This is not something that happens to girls in South Africa. I remember looking at a map and I was like,

God, we’re all the way down here, what’s going on up there?

My greatest dream would have been to be able to support myself as an actor and not have a second job. That was literally what I was aiming for. I just wanted to be able to not depend on my mom or a guy. But the thing with my mom is she did sacrifice a lot.

Yeah, and we’re going to talk about that.

I’m a mom now, and I don’t have to sacrifice the things she did. I know what she did, and I’m very grateful.

Since we’re already talking about your family and where you came from — you grew up in South Africa on a small farm. What do you remember about growing up there and what your life was like?

I remember very vividly moving to that farm. I was 4 years old. I remember it feeling so vast when I was that age. There was this big tree that greeted you as you were driving in. I have very vivid memories of this tree and climbing it recklessly, barefoot, and just feeling a sense of freedom. I loved adventure. I liked getting into trouble. I liked to do things that I knew I wasn’t allowed to do, but I was allowed to do so much. I could take my BMX and go to the closest little town to rent movies.

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