The Monster star and her man, Sean Penn, have been friends for almost two decades, and she tells Esquire magazine that fact makes their romance strong and secure.

And she loves spending time with the fellow Oscar winner and discussing things that are much bigger and more important than Hollywood and film revenues.

She tells the publication, "Sean liked to have conversations outside of just making movies. That's sometimes hard to find among friends here, and that's where our friendship really blossomed.

"A lot of people want to tell you the answer to solving all of Africa's problems from what they've seen on CNN. Sean is not that guy. When he started working in Haiti and I started working on the AIDS front in South Africa, we spent a lot of time talking about those worlds.

"I think that for both of us there was never a moment where we thought that this - what we have today - would ever even be a possibility... I think we're both finding ourselves at this moment in our lives kind of shocked. Both of us. Just when you think you know how things are supposed to go down, life just kicks you in the a** and guess what? You don't have a clue."

But Theron couldn't be happier to be loved up with Penn, adding, "It is nice to be in something where the friendship came first. I've never had that. There's a weight to the relationship already that I don't think you have when you just meet somebody and enter a relationship. There's a foundation of 20 years that the two of us have shared with each other in all these different ways that is really the foundation of something that has brought a lot of beautiful things into my life...

"The moment that we're in is just really good... I'm really enjoying myself and the everyday moment and how that coincides with my son and my life and my friends. I'm a very, very, very lucky girl. Very lucky. He's (Penn) hot. He is hot. How do you say that in an interview? You're a 40-year-old woman sounding like a 16 year old. There's something beautiful about that, but you lack the articulation of really saying what it's like when somebody walks into your life and makes you see something that you really never thought you'd be able to see... As you can see, it makes me smile."