From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro.

I've never had an interview quite like this one with Charlize Theron. I came in wanting to talk about her story career, which began when she was discovered barely out of her teens at a bank in Los Angeles.

By her late 20s, she'd produced, starred in, and won an Oscar for the film Monster.

While she's been in dark comedies like Tully and big-budget fantasy films like Snow White and the Huntsman,

I was most interested in her latest turn

as an action star in films like Mad Max Fury Road, Atomic Blonde, the Old Guard franchise,

and her newest film Apex, where she kicks butt again, this time while being chased

through the Australian wilderness. What we did talk about her roles past and present, our conversation almost immediately

took a revealing turn into some of the most painful chapters in her life, I think surprising us

both. That includes her experience growing up in a violent home in her native South Africa,

her mother killing her father in self-defense, and the repercussions she's lived with

ever since. Here's my conversation with Charlize Theron.

So we're meeting the day after the Oscars, and I was watching your acceptance speech when you won your Oscar for Monster in 2004.

And, you know, you're standing on stage, you're tearing up.

It's clearly just this very important moment, which, of course, it is for any actor.

Your mom is sitting in the audience and you thank her

for all her sacrifices. When you look back now, what do you think about that young woman and what

was happening at that moment? The first thing that came to mind was just this is something that

doesn't happen to girls in South Africa.

Like, you know, it's like I remember looking at a map and I was like, God, we're all the

way down here.

What's going on up there?

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