Theron and Oswalt Make a Perfect Imperfect Pair in 'Young Adult'

Charlize Theron is stretchingand not in a fun way.

"I'm so old," she croaks, her back an obvious source of discomfort. Patton OswaltTheron's co-star in the new Jason ReitmanDiablo Cody picture "Young Adult"chimes in with a helpful journalism tip. "So your first words will be 'Wracked by osteoporosis, Charlize Theron '." Theron laughs, and Oswalt continues. "That will be your opening sentence."

Well, third sentence will have to do. But the easy patter between the two actors demonstrates that the chemistry they share in "Young Adult" isn't limited to the screen. Theron is, of course, a 10-foot-tall Oscar-toting screen goddess who wields all the knock-'em-dead looks of the fashion model she once was. Oswalt is a short comedian's comedian whose acting chops have made him a big-screen secret weapon deployed in films as varied as the Pixar blockbuster "Ratatouille" and the indie darling "Big Fan." These two should, according to all laws of nature, not be friends. Yet they are. That's kind of the point.

In "Young Adult," written by Cody and directed by erstwhile nominee Reitman, Theron plays Mavis Gary, an alcoholic ghostwriter of kids' fiction who, on the verge of bottoming out, returns to her Minnesota hometown with designs to seduce her high school squeezenow married with a child. Her plan goes sour from the get-go, and as Mavis falls apart, she finds herself hanging out more and more with Matt Freehauf (Oswalt), a former classmate whom she ignored in high school, back when she was queen bee and he was the victim of shocking abuse at the hands of the crowd she ran with. Reunited, they form an unlikely (and unhealthy) but believable pair.

The bond that the actors developed was evident from the first time they met, at a table read of the script. "We just clicked," Oswalt says, addressing his co-star. "I knew that [Reitman] wanted you for the role really bad, and I didn't know that we were going to click the way we d! id."

Working Vacation

For Theron, the task in front of her was to portray Mavis as she saw the character on the page: A woman whose actions are horrible but who is ultimately a likable person. "I think, when you read a character like that, you'd have to be an idiot not to see the potential for it," Theron says, "especially for a woman in this day and age. I think that there's something very rare when something like that comes across, when you see a female character be that conflicted, and showing the not-so-pretty side of human behavior when it comes to women. Those are the gems. And in the hands of someone like Jason Reitman, they're lottery tickets."

Theron signed on for the role just weeks before shooting was to begin. Then she took the script with her on vacationto Bora Bora.

"You went to Bora Bora?" Oswalt says, expressing genuine surpriseor a convincing facsimile of it. "Goddamn it. I hired an acting coach." Oswalt worked with coach Nancy Banks, whom he calls "amazing," to help him prepare. Together they went through the script, line by line. Banks told the actor not to worry about creating too detailed a backstory for his character, arguing that no person, real or fictional, knows one's own story correctly. Theron agrees with the approach. "I don't spend a lot of time on backstory," she says.

But the most obvious challenge facing Oswalt was nailing Matt's physical disability. The character walks with a severe limp and uses a cane. "I had to figure out how the leg worked and then didn't work, and how the cane would replace that," he says. "My physical therapist gave me a sheet with all these exercises on it and said, 'At the end of the day, do these stretches, because if you don't, you could permanently walk that way.' That was really nerve-racking."

Unrehearsed

The "click" that Theron and Oswalt felt at that first table read was proved to indicate a deeper bond: Both! Theron and Oswalt are dismissive of long rehearsal periodsa good thing, given that their director feels the same way. "If you overthink the actual scene in rehearsal too much, it will just freeze you up and the life is gone," Oswalt says. "It's better to jump in, make a couple of mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes are better than the written word."

Both actors, of course, heap plenty of credit on Cody's written word, noting that they stuck to the script for most of the shootsave one scene that Reitman tossed out and ordered Theron and Oswalt to improvise. It was one of several in which the actors' appreciation for each other grew.

"Not to blow smoke up your ass," Oswalt tells Theron, "but in those scenes with you, you did the one thing that most actors do not have the guts to do, which was in some scenes you would give me fucking nothing. Most actors are like, 'I want to be present, and I'm listening.' But Mavis, there are just scenes where she is not there." Because it was part of Mavis' character to not be present, Theron's willingness to do the same helped Oswalt thrive in their scenes. "I lucked out," he tells Theron. "You, Diablo's script, Jason, boom. I hit the trifecta. Thank you."

Theron smiles at her co-star. "Oh, my God," she says.

"And Bora Bora," Oswalt adds. "I would like to thank the country of Bora Bora."

Charlize Theron Outtakes

Won an Oscar in 2004 for best actress for her turn in "Monster" and was nominated in 2006 for "North Country"

Trained as a ballet dancer at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York until a knee injury ended her dance career

Will next be seen as Queen Ravenna alongside Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth in "Snow White and the Huntsman"

Patton Oswalt Outtakes

Co-founded "The Comedians of Comedy" tour with Maria Bamford, Zach Galifianakis, and Brian Posehn

Earned a Grammy nomination for his 2009 comedy album, "My Weakness Is Strong"

Was nominated for the br! eakthrou gh award at the 2009 Gotham Independent Film Awards for his role in the film "Big Fan"