10 Actors Even More Impressive When You Know The Truth
6. Charlize Theron Didn't Learn Fluent English Until She Was 19
Charlize Theron boasts one of the most convincing American accents in Hollywood, which is impressive enough given that she was born and raised in South Africa, but even more so when you consider that English actually wasn't her first language at all.
Theron instead grew up speaking Afrikaans, the West Germanic language spoken widely in South Africa, and it wasn't until she moved to the United States at age 19 that she actually learned enough English to be fluent.
Given that Theron began her Hollywood acting career just a year later - with a cameo in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, and a role the next year in Tom Hanks' musical dramedy That Thing You Do! - that's pretty astonishing.
Watching her early roles, you'd never guess she'd only been speaking English fluently for an incredibly brief period of time.
Couple that with most of these roles requiring an American accent, and Theron's an even better actress than we all already thought.