Charlize Theron is shockingly available and needs a man to grow a pair — and a beard
CHARLIZE Theron has conquered Hollywood by playing dark, emotionally repressed characters, from serial killers to a wicked queen.
But the South Africa-born actress — who after more than 20 years in movies has made her first romantic comedy — has revealed it is not just in her new film that love is in the air.
The 43-year-old Oscar winner took a break from relationships after adopting two kids, but has now declared she is “shockingly” ready to date again.
Her ideal man would have a “good beard” — and would be able to put up with her obsessive personality, which includes getting up at 4am to do martial arts.
Charlize, who has not dated since breaking off her engagement to actor Sean Penn in 2015, said: “I’ve been single for years.
“Somebody just needs to grow a pair and step up. I’m shockingly available.
“I’m starting to open myself up emotionally to perhaps finding the love of my life.
“Now my littlest one is taking care of herself, so my time is opening up a little bit more. I’m just looking for a good human.”
‘THERE HAS TO BE SOME CRAZY STORY OR DRAMA’
After years of grafting in lacklustre movies, Charlize — worth £90million — became Hollywood royalty when she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2004 for her role as killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
But her love life has been less distinguished. Despite rumoured romances with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Brad Pitt, Ryan Reynolds and Keanu Reeves, none of them worked out.
In 2015, after a year and a half with Sean, 58, they split suddenly, just months before their wedding.
Charlize said: “When you leave a relationship there has to be some crazy story or some crazy drama.
“We were in a relationship and then it didn’t work any more.
“And we both decided to separate. That’s it.”
After their split, Charlize decided to throw herself into looking after her adopted kids, Jackson, seven, and three-year-old August, and cut back on her film work.
She said: “I was raising two small children and your life just becomes very all-consuming.
“They need you for everything and I’m a single mum with one nanny. It’s not like I have a ton of help, and I really wanted to be a mum, so I was enjoying it.”
Earlier this year Charlize revealed that Jackson had told her: “I’m not a boy” — and she made the decision to raise the youngster as a girl.
She said: “I love being a mum. They get up at 5.30am every day. I make them breakfast. I pack their lunches.
“On the weekends we hang out with family and friends. I’ll cook lasagne for them or steak. We do a lot of grilling. They are mischievous, healthy, funny, so yes, we are really happy.
“They act like they are masters of the limited knowledge they have and use it consistently in a manner of, ‘You’re stupid, Mum’.
“It’s interesting to watch the two of them grow up in the same house and be so different. They have different personalities and I have absolutely nothing to do with that — it’s just how they were born.”
Charlize, who also played Queen Ravenna in 2012 film Snow White And The Huntsman, lives in a £5million LA home but insists she is thoroughly grounded.
She said: “I live a very, very simple life, meaning I’m not a high-maintenance person. I have lived in the same house for 25 years.
“I don’t have a bunch of homes, I have one. I don’t have a staff of people, I like doing s**t for myself.”
Charlize says she would now like to date a man who can “make her laugh” — and, crucially, has that abundant facial hair.
She said: “I made a choice to be single. I was raising two small children and that’s what I wanted to do.
“Now I have changed my mind and I will handle it. I’ll be fine. I want to have a good time, I want to laugh.
“It depends on the guy. A man can grow a good beard, I like that.
“I don’t want guys who don’t grow good beards to grow beards, like those patchy ones. I’m not a fan of that.”
She told how she landed her latest role in comedy Long Shot, alongside funnyman Seth Rogen. Charlize plays US Secretary of State Charlotte Field, who reunites with Seth’s character after recognising him from when she used to babysit him.
She recalled meeting Seth before signing up for the film, saying: “The first meeting we had, I was just really impressed by his confidence.
“He lit a joint and took a hit off it and it was like I was in the presence of Einstein. It was off the charts. There would be days where I would literally follow him and be like, ‘Please smoke, we need this movie to be great’.”
She added: “I never thought I would be in a romcom. When you do something that’s outside your wheelhouse, you naturally function from a place of fear a little bit.”
‘MUM DIDN’T CRY ABOUT IT, SHE JUST DID IT’
Charlize knows all about fear from her childhood in South Africa, when she was tormented by her abusive and alcoholic father Charles.
One day, when she was 15, building business boss Charles came home in a rage, threatening to kill her and mum Gerda with a gun.
In a brave act of self-defence, Gerda turned the gun on her husband and shot him dead.
Charlize has said previously: “Growing up as a young girl, I had this great representation in front of me of what you could be as a woman. My mum did what she had to do and there were no two ways about it.
“When she got up at six in the morning to milk the cows, she didn’t cry about it, she just did it.”
Charlize wakes even earlier than her mum to do her martial arts — something a new man in her life would have to put up with.
She said: “I get up at 4am. I’m obsessive about the martial arts I’m learning.
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“I lie in bed at night thinking about the different hand positions.
“Obsessing is good for me. I’m very focused on the stuff that I really care about, but I do struggle with a bit of OCD, so I have to organise things that I can see — closets, drawers.
“That has to do with when I feel that things I can’t see are out of control.”