Charlize Theron Quotes

The human condition is all about us pretending to be something sometimes that we're not. When you get into the core of people kind of stripping all of that away, that's for me, as an actor, always the most fun stuff to do.

And I was victim to that very early in my career, where I would go into auditions, and I'd be wearing a big T shirt, a big baggy T shirt and loose jeans. You know, to try and show people that there was more to me than just that.

Countries and states which have capital punishment have a much higher rate of murder and crime than countries that do not, so that makes sense to me, and the moral question - I struggle with it morally.

It's in the eyes, mostly. Don't listen just to the other actor's lines. Look at - and listen to - their eyes. That's where the emotion comes through.

I think today women are very scared to celebrate themselves, because then they just get labeled.

My thoughts and love go out to the Mandela family. Rest in peace Madiba. You will be missed, but your impact on this world will live forever.

I think of myself as a highly sexual creature.

Whatever field you can do that, that's where you want to do it, and I think that's why people like David Fincher and Ridley Scott are interested in it, too, because when you sit down on a meeting in HBO and they're like, "More, more." You're just like, "Oh yeah, I love this." Sometimes it's a little harder in film. I think also it's a great audience, take advantage of it. It's a great audience.

Like, I think I pussy out. So, I'm not that kind of person.

You know, I don't think any mother aims to be a single mom. I didn't wish for that, but it happened.

People need to understand that what happens in people's homes and behind closed doors, unless you were there, you really shouldn't make any analogy or any assumption, which writers do quite a bit. It's not something I ever for one second thought about. This is not my life story, and I've never told my life story, and I have no interest in telling my life story.

You're very in tune with, because actors are all different, and it's very tricky when you throw us all together because we all work differently. You want to get the best work out of every individual actor.

I'm 50-50 on glamour stuff. I'd rather put on a pair of jeans and get on my Harley and act like a guy.

It [Hancock] happens to be a big budget film and big star like Will Smith, but it actually has a lot of weight to it. But it was very smart and very intelligent and had this kind of historical element to it that I was fascinated by. It's not silly. It's not stupid. It's fun, but I think it's smart. I think Akiva [Goldsman] writes really interesting material and there you have it.

You're either a really good hooker or a really good mom. That kind of conflicted nature is very much a part of being a woman.

When I'm naked, I really like to do push-ups. No. I think I really tackle it like everything else. If you're going to commit yourself to playing something, you have to be able to understand it. If you can understand it, then you can do it and go balls out with it. But, I've never been in a position where I've been like, "This doesn't feel right." I wouldn't do it, if it was that. I like the shock value of it. I think that, if you use it correctly, it's pretty effective, as long as I'm lit really, really, really well.

There's nothing I despise more than people trying to be something that they're not.

So how critics will perceive your film or your work, or whether your movie is going to make $100 million at the box office, or whether you are going to be winning any awards - well, you have no control over that.

When they watch a movie and they know that you're in a relationship, you just kind of watch that constantly.

You can never get to a place of comfort in this business. As soon as you hit that little cushy spot, somebody's gonna kick you out. So I have a constant need to do it better.

Well, life is dark. We live in a very dark world. When they call them "dark films" it annoys me, because they're very real stories. They're stories I have seen or experienced or witnessed, and coming from that place, that is the hope of humanity.

I don't like rehearsal.

Get on my Harley and act like a guy.

Oh my God I am so cool.

I think a sense of humor is a very personal thing and I don't know if I am talented enough to do romantic comedies.

've had good friends who got married after they've been together for years and they've said that it was the "next step" for them. Or, they've said, "You just can't bail out anymore." And I've wondered, What made you think you could just bail out before [the wedding]? You don't invest that kind of time and energy with somebody and then just go, "All right, see you later."

You choose the life you want for yourself, and then you just shut up and go about it. That's how I've lived my life.

At the end of the day, I'd much rather do a piece about people in a story that I find riveting and intriguing and moving, versus really carrying some kind of heavy political agenda on my sleeve. That's not who I am.

I just want to make good movies. Honestly, the only difference for me with this stuff is that there is more people on the set.

I mean, I'm new but I've always been very interested in film making process and I've been lucky enough to work with film makers in my past that have been very encouraging to let me hang around. I get so emotionally vested - that the producer part of me was natural.

I've always said that I worry about being with a man who doesn't flirt.

I love that old glamour look. I think it's because I grew up on it.

I'm always open to a relationship, but I'm not putting those feelers out there now.

I think more than anything, people just want to be understood.

As actors, we were fighting that tooth and nail because of fear, because language is a crutch and dialogue is a crutch, and it's so easy to just have a great writer write you a line.

My job is to be a blank canvas & embody the characters that I'm playing.

If you were a single mom, there's no way to support yourself and your kids by working in a hair salon. It's about a woman who decides to go and do what was considered a man's job, but was treated quite horribly for it and decides she has to fight for her rights when everyone thinks she should just shut up and take it.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

It's so great as an actor to get the opportunity to do something that's incredibly truthful.

I do this because I'm an observer of people. That's why I want to be an actor. I'm fascinated by human beings and the circumstances they find themselves in.

I have a problem with cabinets being messy and people just shoving things in and closing the door. I will lie in bed and not be able to sleep because I'll say to myself: 'I think I saw something in that cabinet that just shouldn't be there.'

I think actors who know their job know that's how you do it. You don't show up and make people miserable. That poor grip who's standing there, he just wants to feed his family. He doesn't need to hear about your psychosis on life and love and death.

You are only as great as the opportunities that are given to you.

I learned everything about love, watching 'Splash.' That's why I'm still single, so thanks Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah for that.

I think in life we want to challenge ourselves.

I treat my relationships like marriages. The ceremony isn't that important to me.

I didn't grow up with a mother telling me what was under my clothes was bad or evil.

I only worked on Men of Honor for three weeks, but I walked away with so much. Because Bob is the kind of actor who gives you the opportunity to really go there. And we really had to go there. I mean, we were both playing drunks.

People are so involved with immediate care, but at the same time there needs to be investment in educating people as adolescents when they're still HIV negative.

If they ever do my life story, whoever plays me needs lots of hair color and high heels.

I'd love to get pajamas. Good, nice and warm flannel ones.

I'd be unbelievably wrong to say there isn't such a thing as the right place, right time-luck.

Remember I came to Albuquerque to do a hair and makeup test and wardrobe fitting; you guys were already shooting. It's tough when the movie's already started and you kind of show up. You're the new kid on the block. I walked onto the set and Tommy [Lee Jones] was about to do the scene. I just kind of walked up to him. I was shaking, but I just gave him this big hug and he just had nothing to say. He was like, 'Gotta go to work now.' I had a great time working with him.

Yet there's a hunger in me still. I'm like only beginning. I feel like I still have so much to learn.

I don't believe in charmed lives. I think that tragedy is part of the lesson you learn to lift yourself up, to pick yourself up and to move on.

I mean I tried to transform myself through characters throughout my career.

I was going to go to Macchu Picchu and then I just ended up working the whole year.

As you get older, you get wrinkles and your boobs sag. But you get wisdom, too. So it's not all bad!

I had called her up a couple of weeks before then, because I had heard this vicious rumour that she did not like the movie. It was very upsetting for me. I am very sensitive to that, because I am portraying her life and did not want her to be unhappy.

I have OCD, which is not fun. I have to be incredibly tidy and organized or it messes with my mind and switches off on me.

I think there is a part of me that's always a little bit like, "Why would I torture myself? Just in case you forgot how big the shoes are you're walking in, take a look again"

I'm interested in human behavior, and what happened in my family life is definitely not a unique story. There are aspects of that I'm sure you can see through the work. But I'm just looking for something that touches me.

I always knew I would adopt. Always.

Right now the institution of marriage feels very one-sided, and I want to live in a country where we all have equal rights. I have so many friends who are gays and lesbians who would so badly want to get married, that I wouldn't be able to sleep with myself [if I got married before they could].

My mom has made it possible for me to be who I am. Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence.

I grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to.

I feel 100% sure that I have the career that I have today because of independent filmmaking.

Actors - we're selfish, but we can't think about the work in that kind of selfish manner. I think that you have to step away from yourself, if you're going to do it. Otherwise don't do it; otherwise why do it?

I met a woman in Albuquerque and she came and hung out with me in the trailer. It was really just more to kind of really understand my biggest concern was always the interrogation scenes. Remember, that's why I really wanted to meet somebody because you see those scenes on TV so much.

I'm open to anything, dude. I'm open to anything. That's what I would ask the aliens. I'd be like, "Do you watch 'Game of Thrones?'"

I think it's interesting that women, by nature, are way more conflicted than men.

They really stay just characters to me. I look at them, and I don't see always the same person up there. And hopefully, people will see that too. Because it's very easy to bore people, and that's a killer. So hopefully that won't happen.

I think acting is really fully adapting to your surroundings, to your emotions, to the people that you're working with, to being tired, to wanting to go home, to being lonely, to being happy. I mean, it's adapting. For me, it is anyway. And trusting. Adapting and trusting. That's my format right there.

I do not think that condemning people who murder and killing them necessarily sends out the right message.

There's only so much you can do, but if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do.

I think, like many women, I was judgmental toward women as they aged ...

I look at my career and how I'm doing it now. I feel like there is something authentic in that process that I still try not to over manipulate. When I feel something, I try to listen to that.

Life is what you make it ... and nowhere close to making mine the best it can be.

I have been working a lot, and I like it. And you know, it's hard for me not to. I guess I've been working a lot because I get to play with brilliant people.

If I don't like seeing myself on the screen, I think when I start seeing that, that's when I think I'll stop.

I love being a woman and I love being feminine.

I can only hope to be 10 percent of the mom mine was to me. She encouraged me to be confident and enjoy life. That's what I want for my son.

At least I know that one film-maker in my career has had the initiative to come to me and thought of me as being capable of doing interesting and complicated work, and so I have a new-found belief that other film-makers will see me in a different way, the way that Patty did.

When I'm working I don't have room to think about myself and my own issues. It's really freeing. There is no room for me, which is really nice.

Blade Runner was an incredibly influential movie, in terms of the way that it envisioned what the future was going to look like.

I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.

You get yourself out there and you work hard and you hope that word of mouth kind of carries and one day somebody will actually step up to the plate and say "I believe that you can do this."

So I did that for a long time in my career, and I waited for parts to play myself just physically down a little bit. But I do feel like I'm at a place in my career now where I don't necessarily fret about that too much anymore.

When I find something that I really like and I can get it off, then I put my time and energy into that because it is a lot of work.

Fran McDormand was great because she said, 'What I used to do when I worked with him was I would just walk on the set and I would give him a big hug. Somehow his guard would just drop.' So I took that advice.

I guess there are very few actors that I've worked with that I would like to work with again. You never think you'll have that chance and, if we didn't do Italian Job together, there wouldn't be another one that could be right.

In the story, I think as an actor you're just trying to fit into the world.

Marriage equality is about more than just marriage. It's about something greater. It's about acceptance.

So far I'm not surprised by anything about being a mom. It's all pretty great - but that's what I expected.

I havent lost my culture, just my accent.

Something I learned very early on in my career is that there are a lot of things that you do not have any power over.

I'm a true believer that everything happens the way it should.

I've always known I wanted a family.

I think it's such a misconception that women don't like [action/sci-fi] or that they don't wanna go and see these movies. I just feel like women have been so misrepresented in these films. We're like, 'Why do we have to go and see the genre every single time with the girl on the back of the frame with a push-up bra? Why isn't there a girl that's standing on the same playing field with the guys?' We don't wanna be guys, but in a post-apocalyptic world, we will survive!

You always have this fear in a movie of just being somebody's woman.