Charlize Theron on 20-year-olds: ‘They have no f–kin’ concept about wisdom’
Over the past few years, it feels like celebrities have really had to go the extra mile to hustle for their side projects and beauty/perfume/modeling contracts. At some point, the celebrity-interview-as-infomercial went majorly mainstream. Some celebrities even get major fashion magazine covers just to promote their side projects nowadays. It’s so weird. But I’m not complaining, because more often than not, the hustler interviews are better than the film-promotion interviews. Anyway, Charlize Theron has a new interview with WWD, promoting her Dior contract (she is the face of J’adore). You can read the full piece here and here are some highlights:
Charlize on maturing womanhood: “I think that women find their strength and power in their sexuality, in their sensuality within, [through] getting older and being secure within that. It’s ironic that we’ve built the beauty world around 20-year-olds, when they have no f–kin’ concept about wisdom, what life is about, having a few relationships below [their] belt and feeling hardships, to grow into [their] skin and feel confident within [themselves] and to feel the value of who [they] are, not because of a man or because of something like that. And I think that’s such a beautiful thing. And that’s why I think people say women come into their prime in their 40s. And then for some reason our society just wants to go…it’s like a dead flower… It’s like we wilt for some reason. And men are like fine wines — the older they get, the better they get. It’s such a misconception, and it’s such a lost opportunity because that’s when I think women are really in the true moment of their sensuality.”
On her closet, how she sees fashion: “[Mine] is a really nice closet. But by considered standards of other closets that I have seen, I think [mine is pretty minute]. I have seen images of people’s closets that are like homes, and I literally wonder if you wear every day something different, [whether] you still [would] be able to wear all of that stuff in one lifetime. And that concept bothers me. I’m incredibly lucky, people are very generous and sending me stuff. I never take that for granted, but I’m always very aware that I’m one person and I can’t wear everything. The idea of stuff just hanging in my closet and not being used — there’s a little bit of the African in me that gets bothered by that [somewhat]. My whole concept in life is if you’re not using it, you should give it to somebody else so they can use it.”
Keeping current politically: “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 [South Africa] with a lot of political turmoil. I was part of a culture and a generation that suppressed people and lived under apartheid regimes. 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… I make a real effort to try and live in the real world and not just the dream world.
How her son changed her life: “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. Eventually, he’s going be in proper school, he’s going need structure and I will have to manage my time better. I look forward to that. I’m excited for that…. 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.’
She talks a lot about her son and motherhood and how she’s not going to take on touchy-feely movies just because she’s a mom and she’s still dark and hardcore. Which is probably true. She can be a mom and still be the baddest bitch out there. That didn’t bug me. What bugs me is that Charlize sees herself as an authentic person connected to the issues of the world and yet this is the same woman who compared gossip about her personal life to RAPE.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
