In a recent interview with Esquire, Charlize Theron has opened up about her relationship with fellow actor Sean Penn. 

The couple first began dating in early 2014 after having known each other for 20 years. 

"We’ve been friends for twenty years. He was married, I was in a long-term relationship, our spouses—not regularly, but we were in each other’s lives. I think our friendship stemmed from mutual respect—more on my end, because I really didn’t have a body of work twenty years ago, but my love and passion for making films—that was our common ground," the Oscar-winning star, 39, said. "And also, Sean liked to have conversations outside of just making movies.

"That’s sometimes hard to find among friends here, and that’s where our friendship really blossomed.

"There’s a foundation of twenty years that the two of us have shared with each other in all these different ways that is really the foundation of something that has brought a lot of beautiful things into my life. We get so stuck in wanting to predict the future that we forget the moment that we’re in. And the moment that we’re in is just really good. It’s really good, really nice."

Charlize went on to say how lucky she was and that she was really happy with her life, especially with her fellow Oscar-winning partner.

"He’s hot. He is hot," she said of Sean, 54.  

"How do you say that in an interview? You’re a forty-year-old woman sounding like a sixteen-year-old. There’s something beautiful about that, but you lack the articulation of really saying what it’s like when somebody walks into your life and makes you see something that you really never thought you’d be able to see. If somebody had said to me, ‘This is what it will be,’ I would’ve said, ‘F*ck off.’ As you can see, it makes me smile."

South African-born actress Charlize began working as a model at the age of 16. After she was signed to her first agency she moved to Milan with her mother to work. 

While she left modelling to start her career as an actress at the age of 19, after moving to LA, she didn't find fame until the late 90s.

Although she found roles in big films such as The Cider House Rules and The Devil's Advocate, it wasn't until her role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003's Monster that made her one of Hollywood's most successful actresses, after she won an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild award and the Golden Globe that year.

(Images: Rex Features)