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The Time Has Come

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NEWSDAY

That annoying curse, “next big thing,” has dogged Charlize Theron practically from the time she showed up in Hollywood, a hemisphere or two away from her South African home. “God, I’ve been a ‘next big thing’ for five years now,” she says. “When will it end?”

Sooner than she expects, perhaps. “The Cider House Rules,” director Lasse Hallstrom’s version of John Irving’s bestselling novel in which Theron co-stars with Tobey Maguire and Michael Caine, picked up enough steam since its Christmas release to score seven Oscar nominations. (It tied with “The Insider”; only “American Beauty” got one more.) Though Theron wasn’t nominated, the 24-year-old actress’ association with this dark-horse surprise can only enhance her profile within the crowded field of serious and magnetic young movie actresses.

Then, too, there is “Reindeer Games,” which arrives at multiplexes Friday borne by strong buzz for its tight, tricky plotting and roughhouse humor. It seems to have all the elements necessary for an out-of-left-field hit: veteran director John Frankenheimer, best-known for quirky thrillers such as “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962); a script by Ehren Kruger, who penned the current box-office hit “Scream 3”; and a motley cast mixing vividly sinister faces such as Gary Sinise’s and Clarence Williams III’s with such fresh, young ones as Ben Affleck’s and Theron’s.

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She plays Ashley, who’s been writing letters to a Michigan convict. When Ashley’s pen pal dies the day before his release, his cellmate, a car thief named Rudy (Affleck), assumes his identity and makes a date with her that turns sour the moment her homicidal brother Gabriel (Sinise) forces him to take part in a scheme to rob a casino.

If you know this much about “Reindeer Games,” you know almost as much as it’s safe to disclose. One may be risking the movie’s integrity even to say that things, in terms of plot and character, are never what they seem to be for very long. And that goes double, even triple, for Theron’s Ashley.

“I’m always looking for roles that have several layers, and Ashley’s definitely the kind who sheds her skin,” Theron says between sips of tomato soup in her Manhattan hotel room. “But the thing that I kept in mind while playing her was that she’s basically a desperate person--a normal girl who is placed in situations she has to work her way through the best way she knows how, to get what she wants.” (Theron is likewise careful not to reveal too much.)

Theron, who says she sifts carefully through every script that comes her way, says she liked the twists and jolts of Kruger’s story. But, she adds, “Even though the character was written well, I kind of veered away from it until they came up with a director. And John was . . . well, he’s the best for this type of movie. He’s kind of a great paradox because he makes these really well-constructed thrillers that are also good character studies. And he knows what he wants visually from each scene, so much that it gives an actor great security. Like, OK, that’s taken care of, so you can work on your part.”

Portrays Isolated and Desperate Women

Theron’s movie career began with her high-octane turn in 1996’s “2 Days in the Valley.” In the relatively short time since, a pattern has taken shape for the types of roles she has assumed, whether it’s a New England lobsterman’s daughter engaged to a World War II soldier in “The Cider House Rules,” a polymorphously perverse supermodel in Woody Allen’s 1998 comedy “Celebrity,” or supernaturally tortured trophy wives like those in 1997’s “The Devil’s Advocate” and last year’s “The Astronaut’s Wife.”

“Those parts don’t get delivered to my door. I have to seek them out,” she says. “And I make a conscious decision each time about what I want to do and what will work for me. So yeah, I suppose there are connections between the roles you mentioned, and if I had to isolate a couple I’d say it’s that each of those women are, to different degrees, very isolated and very desperate at the same time.”

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Even the model? “Oh yeah,” she says. “She’s so desperate to stay on top and looking for somebody who can keep her up there.”

It isn’t exactly desperation you sense in Theron. And she certainly isn’t isolated, having been romantically linked to Third Eye Blind vocalist Stephan Jenkins. But you do feel some propulsive force that has carried her from the rural town of Benoni in South Africa to modeling, ballet and the movies. Hearing her talk about going to her local drive-in every weekend (“If you wanted to date me, that’s where you took me”) and losing herself Sunday afternoons in front of the VCR, you sense it’s the movies that have been waiting for her all along.

“I think my whole attitude about acting comes from the love I have for movies,” she says, her blue-eyed stare undergoing a power surge. “I mean, I love the movies! I love going to movies and I love making them.

“And I think one of the things I like to do in any performance is leave maybe a corner or two in the role that stays, well . . . not too specific. You know what I mean? . . . For all the preparation and back-story things you do for a role, you don’t want to know too much about what’s going on. Yes, you want to be realistic. But you don’t want to lose the magic.

“And magic in the movies only happens when you don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t want to have all the answers going into a role. I want to be surprised. I love to be surprised!”

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