Charlize Theron: Real life is vital

Charlize Theron doesn't want to go through life being naïve.

The 39-year-old actress was born in South Africa to parents Gerda and Charles. When Charlize was 15 her mother shot and killed her father, who was an alcoholic and had attacked her mother while intoxicated.

When asked what keeps her 'current', Charlize cited growing up in the country and breaking free from the norm as helping her remain grounded.

"I really love having an awareness. I don’t want to live in a world with blinders on. I don’t want to live in a world where I just kind of play on my naïveté - well if I don’t know it, then it doesn’t exist. I was raised in a country with a lot of political turmoil. I was part of a culture and a generation that suppressed people and lived under apartheid regimes," she explained to WWD.

"I don’t know how you can come out of that and not have an awareness for the world. I think that if my life had turned out any other way and I was working in a bank, I would still feel this way about it, because there’s a connection to humanity that to me is really important."

Charlize has a son called Jackson, who she adopted in 2012. She is currently dating Hollywood star Sean Penn and the couple are often spotted out with the youngster.

Since becoming a mom the blonde beauty has realised her life has had to change, especially when it comes to prioritising her son.

"The time management of it definitely comes into play. I’m very lucky right now that he is at an age where he can travel with me. He’s not in a structured school, but that’s going to change," she explained.

"I want him to grow up with a mom that he could see and look at her life with all the mistakes and with all the failures and all the flaws and say, 'My mom lived an authentic life. That was the life she wanted to live.'"