Charlize Theron Tearfully Opens Up About Her Breakup With Sean Penn

Updated on April 2, 2016 at 9:00 AM

Perennial badass Charlize Theron might be known for the tough-as-nails characters she plays on screen, but in actuality, she has a really big soft side. In the April issue of the Wall Street Journal Magazine, The Huntsman: Winter's War actress opens up about everything from her sensationalized breakup with Sean Penn last Summer to the inner strength she regularly wields as a woman striving for gender equality in the film industry. Keep reading to see what she had to say, and then check out a very funny mistake involving Charlize at this year's Oscars!

On the gender wage disparity in Hollywood: "Look, when I saw that Jennifer Lawrence made what she made in comparison to Bradley Cooper [in American Hustle], I was definitely shocked. The way people have been writing about it, it sounds like the Sony hack was what motivated me. My feeling would have still been, 'If we're going to do it again, shouldn't we start on equal footing?' Because, trust me, we weren't on equal footing there."
On her hilarious costars in The Huntsman: Winter's War: "Emily [Blunt]'s funny. Jessica [Chastain]'s funny. Chris [Hemsworth] is pretty. He pret-ty. He's actually really f*cking funny. I've had moments with him where I peed a little bit — that funny."

On growing up in South Africa: "I have a lot of things I should probably sort out in therapy about my relationship with my country. Because it's affected me way more than I've ever acknowledged. And it was only when I got older that I started realizing that I had a lot of anger; there was unresolved stuff — apartheid, health care, AIDS, poverty — that still very much affects me."
On her relationship with Sean Penn: "We were very, very new in a relationship. The stories saying that Sean was going to adopt Jackson [her adopted son] and all of that were not true. It's not something that happens in 18 months. You can't do that to a child. So there was an understanding that I was a single mom with a very young boy who I had to put in a situation where he understood that Mommy dates but that he does not have a father, you know what I mean? You have to be very careful and very honest about that stuff. And Sean was great with all of that. And in my honesty about wanting to have more kids, there was an understanding that a relationship had to go somewhere before it was going to be — what you hope for, which ultimately did not happen. I couldn't foresee that, but that stuff takes time, and I think it's my responsibility as a mother to protect my child from that. And we had a very clear understanding. He knew that I was thinking about filing for another adoption but that we weren't filing together."

On their much-publicized breakup: "There is this need to sensationalize things. When you leave a relationship there has to be some f*cking crazy story or some crazy drama. And the f*cking ghosting thing, like literally I still don't even know what it is. It's just its own beast. We were in a relationship and then it didn't work anymore. And we both decided to separate. That's it."
On turning down stereotypical "babe" parts to avoid being typecasted in the film industry: "I wasn't just thinking about the longevity of my career, it was that I wanted to explore different things. I became aware I could build a career that would be more satisfying to me by saying no."

On the way she approaches a challenge: "I'm a lot more interested in the weakness, the fear. I'm not so interested in the things that I'm strong at. I'm way more perplexed and invested in the things that scare me and the things that break you as a human. It's in those moments that you find your strength."