I'm Raising My Children The South African Way

CHARLIZE THERON is a proud and devoted working mother, but she still recalls a time when she’s struggled with both.

NOT only is the 42-year-old South African superstar refreshingly honest about her shortcomings but they’re inspiring her work as both a performer and a producer. In her new film Tully Charlize has drawn on her experiences as a mother to adopted children Jackson, six, and three-year-old August, to bring the film and the very real issue of postpartum depression to the fore. The film centres on Charlize as struggling mother of-three Marlo and her relationship with babysitter Tully, played by 31-year-old Blade Runner 2049 actress Mackenzie Davis. Here Charlize talks Tully, the trials of being a parent, her desperation to help others and the second season of her killer of a TV show.

What made you want to get involved with Tully?

When I read the script my youngest was around six or seven-months-old and I had just come out of that dark tunnel where you just don’t sleep, and you don’t think you are ever going to come out of that tunnel. So I was like, “Yes, I know this. I think I have found my next project and it’s about motherhood and so much more.” It’s a story that hides behind postpartum depression. It really is about a woman having to find herself and having to make peace with the end of one chapter of her life, in order to make room for the next. That’s always a theme that I really resonate with.

What is your experience of postpartum depression?