Charlize Theron Was 'Shocked' to Find Love With Sean Penn

— -- Charlize Theron has been happily dating Sean Penn for more than a year.

But nobody is more surprised by the romance than the stars themselves.

"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. Ever, ever, ever," she told Esquire magazine. "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 ass and guess what? You don’t have a clue," she continued.

Theron, 39, and Penn, 54, first got to know each other about 20 years ago. At the start of their friendship, he was married to actress Robin Wright, and she was in a long-term relationship. Having that history has only deepened their feelings for one another, she said.

"The moment that we’re in is just really good. It’s really good, really nice," she said. "He’s hot. He is hot. How do you say that in an interview? You’re a forty-year-old woman sounding like a sixteen-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. If somebody had said to me, ‘This is what it will be,’ I would’ve said, ‘F*** off.’ As you can see, it makes me smile.”

So, would she consider marriage in the future? The actress brushed off the institution as "so strange to me."

"I love the possibility of anything, but I’m really enjoying myself and the everyday moment and how that coincides with my son and my life and my friends," she said. "I’m a very, very, very lucky girl. Very lucky."