Sean Penn has been married twice before, but he doesn’t see it that way.

“Yes, I’d get married again,” Penn told Esquire U.K. for the March 2015 issue. “You say I’ve been married twice before but I’ve been married under circumstances where I was less informed than I am today, so I wouldn’t even consider it a third marriage, I’d consider it a first marriage on its own terms if I got married again. I mean, I like the tradition. A friend of mine wrote a line, ‘Without tradition, new things die.’ And I don’t want new things to die.”

The 54-year-old actor had a tumultuous marriage to Madonna in the 1980s. After their split, he met Robin Wright. They welcomed two children and married in 1996. The pair had a rocky relationship and finally split in 2010. He has been dating Charlize Theron for over a year.

“Yeah, I’m surprised to be in love,” he told Esquire U.K. “Lot of reasons. I’m self-proclaimed bad at mathematics but I can do two plus two: 53 years old plus finally beginning to figure out why you haven’t been happy in a single relationship? It could seem too late. But to run into somebody now who you care about is a much more passionate, deeper, truer and -– God! -– a much happier feeling. It’s a lot more romantic and a lot more fulfilling to be in a relationship and to think you’re a good person within it.”

Theron was seemingly just as surprised their romance blossomed. In her own Esquire U.K. interview last year, she said she was not looking for a relationship, but her son, Jackson, got a bit older and she had more time.

“And it’s like if you are open to something, if you just let it happen, it will happen. When you least expect it,” she said. “It was nice to be single and now it’s nice to be not single.”

For more with Sean Penn, head over to Esquire U.K.