Charlize Theron is in love with Sean Penn and she doesn’t care who knows it.

In an interview for a cover story for Esquire magazine, 39-year-old Charlize Theron addressed naysayers who thought the couple had nothing in common back when they began dating in January 2014.

“We’ve been friends for 20 years. He was married, I was in a long-term relationship, our spouses—not regularly, but we were in each other’s lives. I think our friendship stemmed from mutual respect—more on my end, because I really didn’t have a body of work 20 years ago, but my love and passion for making films—that was our common ground,” Theron said.

“And also, 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,” said Charlize Theron.

Charlize Theron on fiance Sean Penn: "I'm a very, very, very lucky girl!" http://t.co/iMSKz6JJXi pic.twitter.com/7UiUBzD7al

— Us Weekly (@usweekly) April 14, 2015

Not only was Charlize Theron surprised at her unexpected luck to find the man of her dreams, she said Sean Penn was just as surprised to fall for her.

“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. I think we’re both finding ourselves at this moment in our lives kind of shocked. Both of us,” CharlizeTheron said. “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.

Charlize Theron talks extensively about Sean Penn, marriage, & how hot she thinks he is: http://t.co/EaJNrwmLHw pic.twitter.com/nPr2YqFcuC

— JustJared.com (@JustJared) April 14, 2015

“It is nice to be in something where the friendship came first. I’ve never had that,” said Charlize Theron, who dated musician Stephan Jenkins from 1997 to 2001 and actor Stuart Townsend from 2001 to 2010.

Charlize added that basing a relationship on friendship brings an additional dimension to the relationship.

“There’s a weight to the relationship already that I don’t think you have when you just meet somebody and enter a relationship,” Charlize Theron said. “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. We get so stuck in wanting to predict the future that we forget the moment that we’re in. And the moment that we’re in is just really good. It’s really good, really nice.”

Charlize Theron opens up about marrying "hot" Sean Penn: http://t.co/p64Gz2Miv0 pic.twitter.com/QY8Y3L5KLh

— CELEBUZZ (@CELEBUZZ) April 14, 2015

On everyone’s mind these days is the question of whether Sean Penn will pop the question to Charlize Theron anytime soon.

“The marriage thing is always 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. I’m a very, very, very lucky girl. Very lucky. He’s hot. He is hot,” Charlize Theron said. “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. If somebody had said to me, ‘This is what it will be,’ I would’ve said, ‘F–k off.’ As you can see, it makes me smile.”

Sean Penn was previously married to Madonna and Robin Wright.

What do you think of Charlize Theron and her words about Sean Penn? Will their relationship stand the test of time?