Charlize Theron Tears Up as She Says She Can’t Wait to Show Her Black Children Black Panther
Charlize Theron can’t help but get emotional when she thinks about Black Panther.
The Oscar-winning actress, 43, teared up when Michael B. Jordan asked her what she thought of his Marvel superhero film that was released earlier this year during Variety‘s Actors on Actors.
“I was born and raised in South Africa during [the] apartheid era,” Theron explained. “I’m very much a white African who lived and thrived under tremendously dark circumstances and that really marks you as a person. Whether that’s your ideology or not, you’re living in it.”
She continued, “When you’re young you don’t know anything different. You know something is wrong but you don’t necessarily understand the broad strokes of it.”
Theron shared she was 15 years old when apartheid ended but that she “didn’t realize until my late 20s and 30s how much anger I had inside me, and guilt, for just living my life circumstantially in a place I didn’t choose.”
“It was the thing that took me towards therapy. Very unawarely, like a therapist had to point that out to me,” she revealed.
As for how Black Panther affected her, Theron said: “It was a very emotional thing.”
“It was very emotional for me to watch it. Yes, I have two young girls, two young beautiful, black, African American girls — not from South Africa,” Theron shared. “But I had a very emotional reaction from it. I still do when I think about it because I cannot wait to share that movie with them.”
Theron has 7-year-old Jackson and 3-year-old August.
The Tully actress continued, “I said to myself, ‘I cannot wait until my girls are big enough to be able to share this with them.’ Because it’s so much more than whether you’re from Africa or whether you’re African American.”
“It’s such a bigger thing than that. That movie broke so many glass ceilings across the board. Not just the fact that there are women in power and they’re black, beautiful, strong, African American women, African women,” she added. “My children are going to benefit from that [and] I got something cathartic out of that. As an African woman, as a woman just in general. It’s so empowering to watch that movie.”
In April, Theron told Elle for its May cover story that she had considered raising her children out of the U.S. due to the country’s current social climate.
“Being raised during the apartheid era in South Africa made me so hyperaware of equality and human rights,” Theron said. “Of course, I have two black kids, but that was always something I was passionate about. I don’t even know how to talk about the last year under our new administration.”
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“But racism is much more alive and well than people thought. We can’t deny it anymore. We have to be vocal,” continued the star. “There are places in this country where, if I got a job, I wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t travel with my kids to some parts of America, and that’s really problematic.”
She added, “There are a lot of times when I look at my kids and I’m like, ‘If this continues, I might have to [leave America].’ Because the last thing I want is for my children to feel unsafe.”
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