4 min readLos AngelesApr 19, 2026 05:53 PM IST Charlize Theron, the star of memorable action films like The Italian Job (2003), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Atomic Blonde (2017), The Fate of the Furious (2017), and The Old Guard (2020), has a strange equation with violence. Her personal life, particularly her childhood, was scarred by violence, thanks to the turbulent marriage of her parents. Back in 1991, when Charlize was just 15, her father was shot dead by her mother after he, while intoxicated, threatened to kill his wife and daughter at their home in South Africa, which itself was on the brink of a civil war. The actor recalled the incident happened after she stormed into her uncle’s house in order to pee urgently, much to the chagrin of her father who was busy drinking with his brother, and was furious his daughter didn’t greet anyone in the room. “Big thing in South Africa, the kind of respect that you have to have for elders. And he was in a state where he …