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Being a celebrated actor and producer, Charlize Theron is one of the most prominent names in Hollywood to this day. Throughout her career, which has lasted for more than 25 years, Theron has received multiple accolades celebrating her proving her acting prowess.
Charlize Theron is an American South African actor who started her career as a model in her teenage years. After winning a one-year modeling contract at a local competition in South Africa, she moved with her mother to Milan and did jobs across Europe.
She then moved to the States hoping to act in the film industry. In 1995, she finally made her debut in a non-speaking role in the film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. She worked on a few more films in minor roles before getting the breakthrough she needed in the 1997 horror drama The Devil's Advocate, opposite Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino.
From that point onwards, it was all uphill for Theron as she appeared in multiple films of varying genres and established herself as a seasoned actor in the industry. By early 2000s, she was a celebrated actor and a recipient of the prestigious Academy Award, Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. This propelled her career further and made her one of the highest-paid actors in 2006.
Charlize Theron, no doubt, has had a successful and long-lived career to date, which will likely continue in the future. With her 47th birthday coming up this week on August 7, we explore some of the lesser-known facts about the beautiful actor.
Interesting facts about Charlize Theron that you may not have known
1) Theron grew up in a household where domestic abuse was the norm
Charlize Theron grew up on a farm near Benoni in South Africa to Gerda Maritz and Charles Theron. But her childhood was not all rosy, and Theron had to witness countless encounters of domestic violence in her household. Her father would often assault her mother and threaten both of them while drunk.
On June 21, 1991, her dad discharged a firearm towards her and her mother, after which her mother, Gerda, shot and killed him to protect herself and her child. While Gerda did not face any charges for this, the whole ordeal took a toll on Charlize's childhood and she was quite traumatized, understandably.
Due to her firsthand experience with domestic abuse, Theron has been very vocal in the fight against domestic abuse and rape. She also has an organization working in Africa that spreads awareness and helps the teenage population regarding HIV/AIDS.
2) Charlize Theron originally wanted to become a ballet dancer
Charlize Theron always wanted to grow up to become a famous ballet dancer and even took classes to learn the art form since she was only four years old. At the age of 13, with a dream of becoming a ballerina, she got admitted to a Johannesburg boarding school that specialized in ballet.
Even after her modeling gig in Europe ended, she moved to the States and enlisted at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. But she soon had to give up on her dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer because of an injury she sustained to her knee.
3) Her entrance into the acting industry
Theron's introduction to her acting career was not at all orthodox in any sense. She struggled financially during her early years in the States after her ballet career went up in smoke due to her knee injury. Living off of paychecks from her modeling days in New York, Theron was in a dire financial state when her mother sent her checks as support.
But when she went to encash it at a bank on Hollywood Boulevard, it was rejected for being out-of-state. In desperate need of money, she got into a verbal spat with the teller when talent agent John Crosby noticed her and came to her help. He then offered to represent her and introduced her to casting directors and an acting school.
Crosby subsequently acted as her manager for as long as he was alive and had a major impact on Theron's career. She even went on to call him her mentor.
4) Theron was the second woman to have received an Academy Award after being on the covers of Playboy
Before Charlize Theron became a known name on-screen, she did modeling gigs for a few years in Italy and New York. However, she was not a huge fan of the work. During her early modeling career, she participated in an explicit photoshoot, which was later run by Playboy in their May 1999 issue.
Theron had filed a lawsuit against the magazine, which she lost, and the images were allowed to run. Charlize Theron is one of two people in the world who has received an Academy Award after featuring in an issue of Playboy.
Theron was awarded the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards for her performance in the 2003 biographical crime drama, Monster.
5) Theron has been consistently one of the highest-paid actors in the industry
Coming from South Africa with humble beginnings, Charlize Theron made it big in Hollywood with her acting prowess as well as her immaculate beauty. She has acted in several commercially successful projects and also received the highest awards for her performances.
Theron's popularity skyrocketed and she became a highly sought-after actor in Hollywood in the early 2000s. From being on the cusp of bankruptcy to being one of the highest paid actors, Theron has seen it all. Charlize Theron has since featured on the list of highest-paid actors in the industry multiple times.
In 2006, she ranked seventh among the highest paid actors with an average of $10 million per film. Between 2017 and 2018, she earned close to $23 million and in 2019, she again ranked as the ninth highest paid actor in Hollywood, according to Celebrity Net Worth. After a career spanning over 25 years, Theron earns close to $30 million every year from her acting projects and endorsements combined.
These were some interesting facts about the South African American actor who has won hearts for over two decades. Charlize Theron is soon turning 47 on August 7, 2022, and we hope to see a lot more of her in films in the near future.
She is set to appear in Netflix's upcoming film The School for Good and Evil, which will be released in 2022. According to Deadline, Theron plays the role of Lady Lesso, a professor at the School of Evil.
