50 Things You Probably Didn't Know about Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is a South African-born actress, best known for her roles in such films as North Country and Monster, for which she won an Academy Award.

1. Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, Transvaal Province, South Africa, on August 7, 1975.

2. Charlize was named after her late father, Charles Theron.

3. She's an only child.

4. She attended a local primary school where she has said she did not feel she fitted in. "I wore really nerdy glasses because I was blind as could be and the boys didn't like [me]," she told People magazine in 2011. "I actually got a lot of the mean girl stuff from the ages of 7 to 12. I was pretty much a mess in primary school."
5. Charlize is a mixture of French and German heritage.

6. She grew up on a farm and she enjoyed being outdoors and being together with nature.

7. Her pet goat Bok "was like my best friend," she said in an interview.

8. She loved dancing and started taking ballet lessons at the age of 4.

9. She had a huge crush on Tom Hanks growing up after seeing him in the movie Splash. As luck would have it, she later starred in Hanks' directorial debut, That Thing You Do!

10. Her first language is Afrikaans. It is an offshoot of several Dutch dialects spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop independently in the course of the 18th century.

11. In case you wondering how to pronounce her last name, its "There-on". The correct pronunciation in South Africa is "Thrown." She changed it when she moved to the US because she was told that it sounded more American.

12. She says she learnt to speak with the American accent by watching US movies and TV shows and singing along to American songs on the radio.

13. She had a traumatic childhood. Her mother shot and killed Charlize's alcoholic, abusive father in 1991 when he attacked both of them. The shooting was ruled to be in self-defense, so Charlize's mother faced no charges.

14. That same year, her mother entered her into a modelling competition. She won and received an offer from an Italian scout and she travelled to Milan to begin her modelling career.

15. She later moved to New York city after being offered a modelling gig. Charlize decided to stay longer and pursue her ballet career by enrolling at the Joffrey Ballet School. A She unfortunately suffers a knee injury which quickly ends her dancing days.

16. However, not all is lost. She decides to move to Los Angeles to try acting in 1994.

17. Charlize was then discovered by talent manager John Crosby in 1994, when he spotted her throwing a"little tantrum" in an L.A. bank over the teller's refusal to cash her check.

18. Her first major movie role was in Two Days in the Valley, in which she gets into an epic underwear catfight with Teri Hatcher.

19. She auditioned for the lead in Showgirls, the 1995 movie about the rise and fall of a Las Vegas stripper (the role eventually went to Elizabeth Berkley). After the movie bombed at the box office, Charlize said her failure to land the part was a blessing in disguise.

20. She hit the big stage when she was cast as Keanu Reeves' wife in The Devil's Advocate in 1997. "She was just too good looking for the role," director Taylor Hackford tells EW.

21. That same year while on vacation with her family in Hawaii over Christmas, Theron meets Third Eye Blind singer Stephan Jenkins after a show and the two begin dating.

22. Unfortunately, the relationship comes to an end after three years of dating.

23. One of the anti-rape ads she shot in South Africa in 1999 (in which she states the country's appalling rape statistics) was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority after they ruled that it implied all South African men were rapists.

24. In 2000, she starred alongside Ben Affleck in Reindeer Games which was a flop at the box office. "That was a bad, bad, bad movie. But even though the movie might suck, I got to work with John Frankenheimer."

25. While filming Trapped in 2001 alongside Kevin Bacon, she falls in love with her on-screen husband, Stuart Townsend.

26. She got punched in the face by Will Smith - by accident. The two were working on The Legend of Bagger Vance and Smith began demonstrating his boxing skills which he had learnt while prepping for his role of Muhammad Ali. He then accidently punched her in the face.

27. She was nominated for the dreaded Worst Actress Razzie in 2002 for Sweet November.

28. She was typecast as the beautiful love interest for years before she took a radical turn and transformed herself into an unattractive sociopath in Monster. She must be very glad that she did because the role earned her a Best Actress Oscar.

29. Ironically, she won her Academy Award for playing convicted serial killer Aileen Wournos on 29 February, 2004 - what would have been Wournos' 48th birthday.

30. She is the second actress (the first was Kim Basinger) to win an Oscar after appearing naked in Playboy magazine.

31. She is also the first South African actress to win an Oscar for Best Actress.

32. The next year in 2005, she was nominated again for Best Actress for her role as Josey Aimes in North Country, a movie based on the landmark sexual harassment lawsuit against a Minnesota mine. The Oscar went to Reese Witherspoon for her role in Walk the Line.

33. Aeon Flux, in which Charlize plays a slick assassin, is not one of her most memorable movies. She admitted that she only took role in Aeon Flux for the $10 million pay check.

34. While filming the sci-fi thriller Aeon Flux, Theron slips doing back handsprings; she suffers a herniated disc between her sixth and seventh vertebrae, which presses into the fluid sac near her spinal cord. Theron trained in gymnastics for 3½ months for the role.

35. Charlize earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame in September of 2005.

36. Charlize became a naturalized US citizen in May 2007.

37. She spoke her mother tongue, Afrikaans, in the movie 15 Minutes, opposite Robert de Niro. S is heard speaking the language over the phone in a brief scene.

38. She produced East of Havana,in 2007, a documentary about three Cuban youth who are hip-hop dancers. "At the end of the day, hip-hop is poetry," Theron tells Marie Claire. "It's a way for these kids to open up about the repression they face."

39. She is voted "Sexiest Woman Alive" in 2007 by Esquire Magazine.

40. Charlize has stated she will only want to get married once gay marriage has been legalized across the US.

41. Charlize has compared the ban on same-sex marriage in the US to apartheid in South Africa.

42. She was sued by exclusive watchmaker Raymond Weil, with which she had a $20 million contract to promote their brand, after she appeared on the red carpet and in a print ad sporting a watch by Christian Dior.

43. Charlize has campaigned for many worthy causes, including PETA and Rape Crisis, and is a UN Messenger of Peace with a focus on ending violence against women and children.

44. She split from Stuart Townsend in 2010 after nine years of dating.

45. Charlize is then romantically linked to her North Country co-star Jeremy Renner. "We're just friends," the Oscar-nominated actor tells PEOPLE, denying the romance reports.

46. In March 2012, she becomes a proud mama of adopted baby boy, Jackson. "It's been amazing, the amount of emails and congratulations,"the actress told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show. "Everyone's just been so lovely - it's been really nice."

47. The beautiful actress has been seen cozying up with Sean Penn during a 2014 New Year's getaway to Hawaii, where the two enjoy the sun and surf. "

48. She used to smoke cigarettes before for a long time but quit after undergoing hypnotherapy.

49. Charlize Theron owns and rides a Harley Davidson bike.

50. She has a tattoo of a flower on her right foot.

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