Interview: Charlize Theron, actress

CHARLIZE THERON is not an actress afraid of showing the camera and the public the truth – warts and all – no matter if it disturbs us, challenges us or amuses us.

After a three-year hiatus, Theron is heading back to our screens with Young Adult, a pitch-black comedy about making war – and a little bit of peace – with the past. It’s one that already has her nominated for a Golden Globe on 15 January, and has whispers of the Oscar word surrounding her wherever she goes during awards season, following her win for Monster in 2004.

Having come to Hollywood in the 1990s, via failed aspirations of a modelling career in Milan, and had her family history and personal life documented for all to see, these days the actress boasts her own production company, Denver and Delilah, as well as her own HIV/Aids and sexual violence reduction foundation, the Africa Outreach Project, to help African youths.

Since Young Adult concerns taking a walk down memory lane, Theron is more than happy to offer up some less than flattering stories about her own youth, which was spent in Benoni, a small South African town outside Johannesburg. Far from the most attractive – or popular – kid in school, Theron insists she was “pretty much of a mess” from the ages of seven to 12. Even though the popular kids excluded her, Theron admits to being “obsessed” with her school’s queen bee. “I mean, like you would go to jail for that stuff today,” the actress says with a laugh. “I’m so embarrassed to say this, but I was in tears one day because I couldn’t sit next to her. I have issues.”

Theron is adamant that during her high-school years boys never gave her the time of day. “I wore really, really, really nerdy glasses,” she says. “I was blind as could be, and boys don't really like big, nerdy glasses. Sure, I had a crush. I didn't have any boyfriends but I had a massive crush on this guy.”

Recently, a reporter for Vogue tracked down the one-time object of Theron's desire. The guy claimed he was just as wild about Theron as she was about him. But the actress isn't buying it. “This guy did not know that I existed in school but he was like, ‘Tell her the crush was mutual.’ F*** that. It was so not mutual. Then he was, like, ‘Oh, and I remember she wore those glasses.’”

Given her willingness to revisit her own past, it's no wonder that director Jason Reitman (Thank You for not Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air) and writer Diablo Cody (Juno) suspected Theron would be perfect casting for the role of Mavis Gary, a teen-lit author whose existence is shaken to the core when she receives the news that her former high-school boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) has just become a dad. Mavis immediately jumps on a plane bound for her hometown, in rural Minnesota, with hopes of winning her ex-beau back – despite the fact that he's married and a new dad.

Theron describes Mavis as being “delusional” and “just a beautiful car wreck”. But that didn't stop the actress from identifying with her alter ego's hopes and fears. “I thought that the things she did were pretty despicable, but then again, not to the point where I was disgusted by her,” says Theron. “I never had a hard time liking her. I would love to go and have a beer with her. I would never let her hang out with my boyfriend, but I would love to hang out with her. I found her fascinating.”

Mavis might be a heavy-drinking, wise-cracking, self-absorbed grab bag of dysfunction but, thanks to the actress, she never seems like she’s beyond redemption. Theron chalks up a lot of Mavis's questionable behaviour to her unwillingness to grow up. “What I liked when I read Diablo's script was that Mavis is dealing with issues that are very, very common to women in their mid to late 30s but Mavis is dealing with them the way a 16-year-old would deal with them. I thought that was really fascinating.

“When she says things, like, ‘Don’t you know that love conquers all?’ That’s something that a typical 16-year-old would say. Here she is at 37, trying to get her life together, and she just doesn't have the tools to do it.”

The last thing that Theron wanted to do in Young Adult was to try to elicit sympathy for such a complicated character. “I don’t kind of try to go for the overly sympathetic,” says the actress. “I don’t really like sympathy. I don’t like it for myself.

“Sometimes, sympathy can make you feel like you’re trying to make someone a victim. Maybe it's my own stuff that I have to deal with. I think more than anything people just want to be understood.”

Theron clearly understood Mavis. While the actress has played plenty of admirable women in her career – think of the steely union organiser in North Country (for which she was also Oscar-nominated) and the determined police detective in The Valley of Elah, alongside Tommy Lee Jones. She achieved her best reviews, and an Oscar, for her turn in Monster – as serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who murdered seven men she accused of raping or attempting to rape her in Florida and for which she was then executed. “I think that people get really kind of freaked out when they see real women conflicted, onscreen,” notes Theron.

“I think we come from a society where we're very comfortable with the Madonna/whore complex. We’re either really good hookers or really good mothers, but we’re not bad hookers or bad mothers – or anything in between. I think it's refreshing to see a character who's neither of those extremes.

“I grew up watching cinema where guys got to do that. Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro got to play all kinds of struggling, dark characters. It’s very rare to see women that way.

“People keep going to me, ‘Oh, it's so brave’ [to play Mavis]. But it really isn’t. It's just refreshing. It's so great as an actor to get the opportunity to do something that’s incredibly truthful. It has been really, really nice.”

In real life, Theron has survived her share of dark times. When she was a teenager, her mother shot and killed her abusive father after he threatened both women. (Her mother was not prosecuted). Not long afterwards, Theron moved to the United States to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer. She was a member of Joffrey Ballet before injuries sidelined her at 19.

Theron subsequently moved to Hollywood, where she aced roles in fluffy films like Mighty Joe, Celebrity and Two Days in the Valley. In 2004, she re-invented herself as a dramatic powerhouse with Monster.

The actress hasn't been on screen since 2009’s The Road but she has been busy, overseeing potential TV projects for her production company and preparing for two films set for release in June this year – Snow White and the Huntsman, the first in a trilogy of films in which she plays the Evil Queen to Twilight star Kristen Stewart’s Snow White, and Ridley Scott's sci-fi epic Prometheus.

During her time away from our screens, Theron also separated from her longterm partner, Irish actor Stuart Townsend, whom she met on the set of the film Trapped in 2001. She currently finds herself single for the first time since she was 19.

Back in early 2010, Theron originally turned down Young Adult because she had already committed to Fury Road, the fourth film in the Mad Max series, with British actor Tom Hardy taking over the Mel Gibson role. But when Fury Road was pushed back a year, she immediately re-connected with Reitman about Young Adult.

Now there's talk of Theron netting her third Oscar nomination (following Monster and North Country) for her ability to walk the fragile line between humour and heartbreak. “It's just really nice to have people come up to me and have these little tiny anecdotes about what they connected with in Young Adult,” confesses the 36-year-old. “The movie kind of puts them in a little bit of a Mavis mood, and so they feel free to admit that they’ve done things like Mavis has done, which is just so endearing, I love that so much.

“I just feel like that's proof that we all [achieved the kind of movie] we set out to make. So, that's the greatest gift for me. Plus, I already have an Oscar.” n

The Golden Globes take place on 15 January; Young Adult is released on 10 February