It was no doubt one of the toughest roles of her career but Charlize Theron put on a professional display at the Paris premiere of her new movie Dark Places. The 39-year-old actress dressed to impress in a glittering dress as she arrived at the Cinema Gaumont Opera Capucines in the French capital to promote the movie.
Dark Places is adapted from the brutal, hard-hitting thriller by author Gillian Flynn, which tells the story of a young girl who witnesses the murder of some of her family members.
Charlize plays Libby Day, the sole survivor of a massacre in the fictional rural town Kinnakee, in Kansas. Having witnessed the murder of her sisters and mother in what appears to be a Satantic cult ritual, she manages to escape through a window and later testifies in court against her teenage brother, Ben.
After 25 years however, Libby then meets a group of amateur investigators who claim that her brother is innocent.
The movie was directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and produced by Charlize through her Denver and Delilah production company. Mad Men star Christina Hendricks, 39, and Chloe Moretz also star in the film.
Charlize was joined at the Paris premiere by Flynn, Paquet-Brenner and co-star Nicholas Hoult. Meanwhile, the chilling story has some similarities to Charlize’s real-life experience as a teenager.
At just 15-years of age, Charlize witnessed the killing of her father, by her own mother in an act of self-defense. Charlize’s mother Gerda Maritz, shot her alcoholic and abusive husband and after years of hiding the truth, Charlize spoke out about it in 2009.
She said: ‘Everything changed for me that day my father died. Years ago I used to cover it all up and say he died in a car accident.’
‘I have now come to terms with it and have been able to move on. This was so long ago in my life and my life, my emotions and the pain are not stuck in this one event,’ she said.