In the Valley of Elah is Academy Award-winning writer/director Paul Haggis's follow-up to Crash. The drama follows Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones), a former military MP whose son goes missing upon his return from Iraq, and costars Susan Sarandon as his wife and Charlize Theron as the detective in charge of his case.

"I got to know [writer/director] Paul [Haggis] while I was nominated for North Country. We were doing the award circle; he was doing it for Crash. And the two of us were, like, the only losers in an alley smoking cigarettes, and he told me about this project," recounts Theron. "We kind of kept running into each other and he kept talking about it. It sounded fascinating. He had sent me a script, he was in Italy and he emailed me a script. And I read it, and the next day I said, 'Count me in.'"

Theron, who was the first one to sign on, was compelled by the story. "It's always the story, always," she says. "You can have the best character in the world in a crap story and it doesn't matter, so I'd rather be in a good movie. And whether I'm in it for two minutes or two hours, that doesn't matter to me."

In the Valley of Elah is part of a crop of new Iraq War movies that are coming out. Theron felt it took a neutral stance on the war in general, rather choosing to speak to the issue of taking care of soldiers once their duty is complete. "Politically I didn't feel like [In the Valley of Elah] carried any kind of agenda. I didn't feel like there was any liberal or democratic or republican kind of message behind it. I didn't feel like it was pro-war or against war," explains Theron. "I felt like this was just the truth about the realities of we are at war and we are sending these very young kids over there to go and do something that very few of us would go and do. And I have a great respect for that. But they're coming back here, and we can't expect them to kind of fit back into society and be normal, functioning citizens. It's just not going to happen. We have to give them the right tools and we're not."

The actress plays a very different part in the movie than the other principals--a beleaguered police detective versus grieving parents, so her research for the film was a little less about the war and more about police procedure. "In Albuquerque I spent a little time [with female detectives]," she explains. "I was intrigued with interrogation scenes and I wanted to hear what that was really like. It turned out to be really boring (laughs). You're not supposed to lose your cool. You're not supposed to be all overly dramatic. It's supposed to be a very normal conversation, a very reasonable conversation."

Aside from her big interrogation scenes, In the Valley of Elah is full of long stretches of silence, which is just the way Theron likes it. "Directors hate me sometimes because I have a very clear understanding of how powerful the physical can be," she says.  "Sometimes as an actor we get lost in these kind of showy moments of ‘yes, we want that monologue’ and ‘we want that’ and I really have no desire for a monologue. And when Paul started writing my part, I was like, 'Can you cut down on the lines, please?' Yeah, I would have loved to have been in silent films."

Charlize Theron can be seen in In the Valley of Elah opening this weekend.

Click on ReelzChannel.com's In the Valley of Elah page for clips from the movie and more!