Walking into a New York hotel room with a booming voice and a bold smile, the 5' 9" actress boasts the kind of fiercely monkeyed-up hairstyle that only the truly attractive can pull off. As she sat down to talk with drDrew.com, Theron joked that she'd just flown in from a film set in Reno, Nevada, where she was "trying to just gamble enough money to buy a house."

drDrew.com: Did you enjoy playing a deep-down nasty person in Reindeer Games?
Charlize Theron: [slow grin] She's not nasty! I think there was an essence of her, like Helga [Theron's character in Two Days in the Valley ] that makes me like both characters. Things just really haven't worked out for them in life.

drDrew.com: Why does that interest you?
CT: I think that life is unpredictable, much like a heist. No matter how much you plan it out, it's never gonna work out the way you want it to. There are always going to be some obstacles thrown your way. The circumstances that you find yourself in at that particular moment can change everything for you and you might deal with them in a very radical way.

drDrew.com: Do you enjoy stunts? There weren't many in Cider House Rules.
CT: Well, they were both very cold places to be in, which is not my favorite thing. I like being physical. I think it comes from the fact I was a dancer for so many years, and physically I told stories for most of my life without doing anything verbally. The physical part is so important to me. I don't like characters who just sit in chairs doing scenes. My stunt girl hates me. They fly her out and I'm like, "No, no, let me do it!" But there were certain things on this film it would have been irresponsible for me to do.

drDrew.com: How do you recharge between films?
CT: A lot of energy packs! I'm fond of little vacations and I do that pretty much after every movie if I can. No one has the phone number, and I go away for five or seven days and I just get away from everything. I think the hardest thing about working back-to-back is that you don't have enough time to get one character out of your system. I find that going away somewhere isolated and not being in touch, being in a room and watching the Discovery Channel all day can really clear your head. [There's] something about all those alligators.

drDrew.com What's the oddest rumor you've read about yourself?
CT: That I was gay. But I don't know how they found that out! [Laughs] I've been keeping that a pretty good secret for so long!

drDrew.com: Do you forge friendships on the set easily?
CT: When you work on something as intense as Reindeer Games, it's not the most pleasant place to be. Yet somehow we always found a bar that had a bikini contest. Those things sound really silly, but those are the things that make you want to wake up at 4am in the morning and go to work with these people. It's so important. The face that Ben makes when a girl comes out with a little bikini is priceless.

drDrew.com: Was it nice to have a leading man for once you could look up to?
CT: Very nice. Where you can actually wear heels and feel good about it. He's a tall drink of water. My wardrobe usually consists of flip-flops. Flip-flops or nothing at all. Because that inch really is a lot.

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