Charlize Theron's teen throwback from the 90s will leave you stunned

Name: Charlize Theron through the years
Uploaded: 2025-08-08T12:57:55.000Z
Duration: 33 s
Description: Charlize Theron through the years

The South African and American actress is now raising two daughters of her own

Charlize Theron at the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project 2025 Block Party

Hannah HargraveUS Deputy Editor

Updated: 15 hours agoJul 14, 2026, 10:25 AM GMT+1

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Charlize Theron's career as an actress and model has spanned the best part of three decades, and she's still going strong. The Apex star, 50, is currently making waves while promoting her new project, The Odyssey.

But a stroll down memory lane proves Charlize has barely changed since she was a teenager. The image below from 1992 shows Charlize at 16 posing outside her childhood home in Benoni, South Africa.

Barefoot and leaning against a tractor, she was casually dressed in denim shorts and a vest, with her hair pulled back from her face.

Charlize Theron, wearing a white tank top and denim shorts, poses barefoot on a large tire.

The photo was taken just a few years before she moved to Milan to pursue a career in modeling before settling in New York City and bursting onto the entertainment scene in the movie Two Days in the Valley.

The big breakthrough for her came a year later in 1997 when she played the satanic bait in The Devil's Advocate. Her career has gone from strength to strength and she's now estimated to be worth $170 million.

Defending her appearance

Charlize stunned at the Paris Premiere — Charlize at the Paris Premiere

Charlize wowed her fans on her most recent press tour, looking phenomenal in a series of show-stopping looks. However, she clapped back at some who accused her of looking too thin at the Paris premiere of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

Charlize's role as a mom

Charlize rarely shares pictures of her daughters

When she's not making waves in front of the camera, she's at home with her daughters, August, 11, and Jackson, 14.

She adopted her first child from her native country of South Africa in 2012, and her youngest in 2015 in the United States. The mom-of-two wants her kids to understand that hard work is at the heart of everything both she, and they, do.

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"I think that's more important than fame or anything like that," she told Harper's Bazaar. "I saw my mom work hard, and I remember just my whole life thinking, nothing is going to get handed. You have to work harder than anybody else in the room."

See more photos of Charlize's style journey below.