Charlize Theron's life is a fairytale. But she won't wed her Prince Charming even if she does think he's one of Hollywood's hottest directors
CHARLIZE Theron lives up to her image as the world's most beautiful actress. Her thick blonde hair frames a flawless face, blue eyes are wide and warm, her smooth skin is lightly tanned and a creamy, velvet dress hugs a slim 5ft 9in figure. But things, she warns, are far from what they seem.
Theron, 32, shows an iron will inside that velvet dress. "I am very resilient," she says. "I have had to learn to put emotions aside in Hollywood and concentrate on the facts of life. It is a cruel world and a sharp example of that is here on every corner."
The manicured lawns of Beverly Hills, not far from where she now lives, with a Mercedes parked in every drive, is only part of the story. Behind the façade is a business in which women are cast aside every day for a younger model and careers either soar or crash depending on the whim of cinema audiences.
"I am under no illusions," says Theron. "I have had a wonderful time here, but that can be just as quickly and easily taken away. This year's model can be old news very quickly and just forgotten. Life can change fast."
Theron has been forced to learn those facts of life quicker than most. When she was 15, she watched in horror as her mother, Gerda, shot dead her drunken father, Charles, as he threatened them both with a gun at their home in small-town Benoni, near Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a home town she expected to live in for the rest of her life.
Her transformation since, at first through modelling in Italy and then a failed career as a ballerina in New York, after suffering a knee injury, has made the girl who once spoke only in her native Afrikaans one of the world's biggest film stars.
After moving to Los Angeles, aged 19, she had the good fortune to win a role in the directorial debut of Tom Hanks in That Thing You Do!, which got her noticed by casting directors.
She won an Oscar as best actress for playing serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003) and landed another Oscar nomination for her hard-hitting North Country (2005). She regularly rolls out a wide range of new movies, from last year's classy In The Valley Of Elah, with its strong anti-Iraq war theme, to the comic Hancock, co-starring Will Smith.
But her favourite project has been Battle In Seattle, released later this year, alongside even more new films, the post-apocalyptic The Road, co-starring Viggo Mortensen, and The Burning Plain, in which Kim Basinger plays her mother.
Battle In Seattle is about the 1999 mass protest against a meeting of the World Trade Organisation, which is directed by long-time Irish actor boyfriend, Stuart Townsend. It has, she says, a winning combination of drama, love and tension.
Is this blind love? "He is a great director," she insists. "People think I am biased because I am sleeping with him. But, truthfully, if I was not sleeping with him, I would still say the same thing.
"You think you know someone, but then they pull a rabbit like that out of a hat and you think: 'Who are you?' So, yes, I was impressed. But it was also a little scary, because Stuart became another person."
Theron plays the wife of a police officer, Woody Harrelson, who is part of a riot unit. Stuart, who spent three years planning, writing and directing the film, also signed up top Hollywood names like Ray Liotta and Michelle Rodriguez in key roles.
"Stuart is such a good writer, the words flow off the page. He is a very secure, talented man, which is why I find him so easy to love," says Theron.
But Theron is pragmatic about marriage. She shows me a small emerald ring on her wedding finger. It is the closest she will ever come to a church, a formal ceremony and a gold ring.
"We did not do it in the eyes of God and I did not wear a white dress," she says. "We are married, though, in every other way." She reports that she has nothing against conventional marriage, even for her own mother, who now lives virtually next door to her in Los Angeles. "I walked my mum down the aisle a couple of years ago to marry my stepfather, Doug," she says.
"We cannot believe where our life has taken us. We often look at each other, smile and say: 'Wow.' But we don't get carried away. It is important to remember where we came from and the circumstances. Nothing is ever forever."
She stresses that her views on love and marriage have nothing to do with the tragic events of June 21, 1991. Her mother was never charged by police, who judged the shooting of her father "self-defence".
"Even when I was a little girl, I did not dream of wearing a white dress," she says. "There is also a part of me, secretly, who likes the idea of the person who wakes up next to me each morning having a choice. The last thing I need is a man in the house who does not want to be here."
For such a stunning looking actress, Theron has had few relationships. She has been with Townsend, 35, since August 2001. Before that, she dated Stephan Jenkins, lead singer of the band Third Eye Blind, for three years. "I have never been a big dater and am very much a one man woman," she says. "When I see the sort of things that go on during filming, with some people, I prefer to just ignore it."
Theron also refuses to pursue her career, like many in Hollywood, to the point of distraction. "We try to fit in our work with our private life," she says. "If Stuart works, I am free so I can be with him. Or the other way around. When we both worked at the same time in Europe a couple of years ago, I was in Prague and he was in Budapest, so we could see each other at weekends."
They have also taken long backpacking trips away from the hype. So are others surprised when they meet her trekking around Europe? "They don't recognise me," she says. "I look very different - a total mess."
On a recent trip, they travelled across Turkey and Greece. "We only had one disaster, turning up in Istanbul at the same time as their film festival," she says. "It turns out that it is my biggest fan base on the internet. So it was all peaceful wherever we went – and then what seemed like thousands of paparazzi in Istanbul."
If it bothered her, she does not show it. "It gives us a feeling of joy to throw on a backpack and live in a different culture for a month," she says. "Since I moved from my home in South Africa, it seems as if I have never stopped exploring."
And what of her own future, as she carefully manoeuvres her career around a personal life which is obviously vital to her? "It is discipline which has seen me through," she says. "To act, you have to be vulnerable. But you also have to be tough to survive in Hollywood and accept it for what it is."
Hancock is released on Wednesday
www.sonypictures.co.uk/movies/hancock/The full article contains 1286 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
