CHAALIZE IN CHARGE

Charlize Theron likes the darkness. It calls to her. It’s a place where she’s come to feel comfortable over the years, thanks to her ferocious, starkly nuanced performances as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (for which Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2004), Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, the wicked queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman and the icily lethal MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton in Atomic Blonde. So if you’re surprised to learn she’s playing the romantic lead in the latest Seth Rogen rom-com, Long Shot, you’re not alone. “I never thought I would be in a romcom,” says Theron, laughing. “I don’t think I would know how to do justice to a straightforward rom-com.”

We’re at Milk Studios in Hollywood, where Theron, 43, has just finished her cover shoot for . Dressed in an aqua wool crew-neck jumper, long caramel-coloured palazzo pants and shearling-lined Birkenstocks, she looks casual but also decidedly regal, with her sable hair cropped in a pageboy style and green eyes sizzling