Charlize Theron Trivia: 35 fascinating facts about the actress!

Charlize Theron is a South African and American actress and film producer.

Let’s see some fun facts about her!

1. Charlize Theron was born 7 August 1975 in Benoni, in the then-Transvaal Province of South Africa.

2. She is the only child of Gerda Jacoba Aletta and Charles Jacobus Theron.

3. Second Boer War figure Danie Theron was her great-great-uncle.

4. She is from an Afrikaner family, and her ancestry includes Dutch, as well as French and German; her French forebears were early Huguenot settlers in South Africa.

5. “Theron” is an Occitan surname (originally spelled Théron) pronounced in Afrikaans as [tron].

6. She grew up on her parents’ farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg.

7. On 21 June 1991, Theron’s father, an alcoholic, physically attacked her mother and threatened both her and her mother while drunk; Theron’s mother then shot and killed him.

8 . The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defence, and so her mother faced no charges.

9. Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein), a period during which she has said she was not “fitting in.”

10. At thirteen, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg.

11. Although Theron is fluent in English, her first language is Afrikaans.

12. Although seeing herself as a dancer, Theron at 16 won a one-year modelling contract[11] at a local competition in Salerno and with her mother moved to Milan, Italy.

13. After Theron spent a year modelling throughout Europe, she and her mother moved to the US, both New York City and Miami.

14. In New York, she attended the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer until a knee injury closed this career path.

15. At 19, Theron flew to Los Angeles, on a one-way ticket her mother bought for her, intending to work in the film industry.

16. During the initial months there, she went to a Hollywood Boulevard bank to cash a cheque her mother had sent to help with the rent. When the teller refused to cash it, Theron engaged in a shouting match with him.

17. Upon seeing this, talent agent John Crosby, waiting behind her, handed her his business card and subsequently introduced her to casting agents and also an acting school. She later fired him as her manager after he kept sending her scripts for films similar to Showgirls and Species.

18. After several months in the city, she made her film debut with a non-speaking role in the horror film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995).

19. Her first speaking role was a supporting but significant and attention-garnering part as a hitwoman in 2 Days in the Valley (1996).

20. Larger roles in widely released Hollywood films followed, and her career expanded in the late 1990s with box-office successes like The Devil’s Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999).

21. She was on the cover of the January 1999 issue of Vanity Fair as the “White Hot Venus”.

22. She also appeared on the cover of the May 1999 issue of Playboy magazine, in photos taken several years earlier when she was an unknown model; Theron unsuccessfully sued the magazine for publishing them without her consent.

23. Theron received critical acclaim for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003), for which she won the Academy Award, Silver Bear, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress among several other accolades, becoming the first South African to win an Academy Award in a major acting category.

24. She received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for her performance in the sexual harassment-themed drama North Country in 2005 and a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in Jason Reitman’s 2011 film Young Adult.

25. Theron became a U.S. citizen in 2007, while retaining her South African citizenship.

26. In the late 2000s, she moved into the field of producing, both in television and film. In 2006, she produced the documentary East of Havana.

27. She had producing credits on the films The Burning Plain (2008) and Dark Places (2015), both of which she starred in.

28. In 2012, she played Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman and Meredith Vickers in Prometheus, both of which were box office successes. She reprised her role of Queen Ravenna in the 2016 follow-up film The Huntsman: Winter’s War.

29. In 2016, Time Magazine named her in the annual Time 100 most influential people list.

30. In 2007, Theron became a naturalized citizen of the United States, while retaining her South African citizenship.

31. Theron has two children, both adopted. In March 2012 she adopted a boy.

32. In July 2015 she adopted a girl.

33. She lives in Los Angeles.

34. While filming Aeon Flux in Berlin, Germany, Theron suffered a herniated disc in her neck, caused by a fall while filming a series of back handsprings. It required her to wear a neck brace for a month.

35. In July 2009, she was diagnosed with a serious stomach virus, thought to be contracted while overseas. While filming The Road, Theron injured her vocal cords during the labour screaming scenes.