Charlize Theron has joked her mother "made her sleep in a closet" when she was a child.

The actress stars as Mavis Gary in Young Adult. Her wayward character returns to her hometown hellbent on stealing her former boyfriend from his wife and child in the movie.

Charlize finds it funny to revisit her childhood home.

"I've gone back several times but the only thing I remember is walking through the house and the bedroom I grew up in, and everything feeling so small," she told the UK edition of OK! magazine.

"I was like, my mother made me sleep in a closet! That was kind of profound for me, because I just remember it so big."

Charlize has recalled her school days. The stunning star is adored by many nowadays, but says her childhood couldn't be further away from her glitzy Hollywood lifestyle.

"I wasn't really in the popular crowd. I was blind as could be and wore really nerdy glasses boys don't really like big nerdy glasses!" she exclaimed.

"I didn't really have boyfriends, but I had a massive crush on this boy who never knew that I existed in school. This journalist who interviewed me actually went and tracked him down and he was saying, Tell her the crush was mutual!' The crush was not mutual!"