AS A YOUNG girl being brought up in South Africa, Hollywood star Charlize Theron says watching Bollywood films was a Sunday routine as her native country has a sizeable Indian population.
Theron, the star of countless and critically acclaimed Hollywood titles such as Mad Max: Fury Road, Blonde, Monster, The Italian Job, and Atomic Blonde, said she is fascinated by India’s culture and its people.
“The largest Indian population outside of India is in South Africa. I flew in last night and we went to have dinner, and I walked into the restaurant and it smelled like home,” the actor said at the HT Leadership Summit in New Delhi.
“I was like, ‘I know this smell.’
I grew up with a lot of Indian culture around me. And I think it’s partly why I’ve always wanted to come to India. I’m fascinated by the culture. I’m fascinated by the people and fascinated by the country. There’s a beauty here that is just unique to India, you do not find this anywhere else,” she added.
The 48-year-old actor said she was introduced to Indian movies as a child, and she watched them a lot more than Hollywood films.
“And because there’s such a big population of Indians out in South Africa, I got to watch more Bollywood movies than I did American movies. When I was around 10, we got this kind of a streamer on our television and the predominant movies that were on it were Bollywood movies.
“And every Sunday, they would put a new movie on and that was what we did. Every Sunday we sat and we watched a Bollywood movie,” Theron said, adding that the Indian films made her fall in “love with dancing”.
“Musicals were my favourite to watch,” she added.
Theron was in conversation with Indian filmmaker Karan Johar, and the two discussed a range of subjects, including her journey to Hollywood from South Africa, equal pay, cancel culture, and making a foray into film production.
Sandhya Suri poses during a photocall for the film "Santosh" at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 21, 2024.