Some of the most impressive actors have qualities seasoned over the years in quiet, low-profile movies, although that’s not always by choice. After Nick Stahl got raves for 2001’s Oscar-winning In the Bedroom, it seemed likely that the young actor would move up to big roles in A-list movies. That hasn’t really happened. Instead, he has continued to take larger parts in offbeat, little-seen movies, such as How to Rob a Bank and The Night of the White Pants.

The 28-year-old Texan, first noticed as the boy playing opposite Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face, did get supporting work this decade in big-ticket items like Terminator 3, as Sarah Connor’s grown son, and Sin City, in which he was the biliously memorable Yellow Bastard.

More often, he has helped anchor grittier indie items like Sleepwalking, opening here on Friday (March 14), in which he plays a rural drifter forced to grow up when his ditzy sister dumps her precocious daughter on him and then takes off. The sibling is played by Charlize Theron, who also produced and helped assemble a cast that includes Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson, and AnnaSophia Robb as the daughter.

“We worked Nick pretty hard,” says Rob Merilees, a Vancouver-based producer also aboard the film, which is having its Los Angeles premiere when he calls. For the Canadian veteran of flicks like The Snow Walker, Air Bud 2, and Just Friends, it was a chance to work with Theron, who easily attached whomever she wanted to play the major roles in the tale, directed by film newbie Bill Maher (not the comic). Merilees helped secure the Saskatchewan locations, doubling for unstated U.S. locations, to provide Sleepwalking with its bleakly beautiful backgrounds.

“There’s an excellent tax rebate there. The only catch is that you have to shoot in Saskatchewan. It was cold out there! I think it hit minus 40 or less. We absolutely killed Nick, man. It’s 7 o’clock in the morning and, ”˜Here, put your hands in this freezing water.’ He really brought it, too, I can tell you that.”

For his effort, the rangy actor is still shaking off the subzero experience.

“It was more chill than I’ve ever experienced in my life,” a shuddering Stahl recalls from L.A. “The temperatures were absurd. It was also a very tight shooting schedule. We did it in 30 days, and each day’s workload was pretty daunting. But that’s what you do when you’re making these smaller stories.”

On top of everything else, he spent almost the entire month in a light army coat.

“Oh, there were many layers under that thing,” he says, not necessarily implying anything metaphorical. And yet, any critic would, at some point, need to use onionlike images to describe the subtlety of his work.

When pressed, Merilees (who moves from the depths of Prairie winter to sets in Borneo and Colombia for his next projects) wonders if Stahl’s strength has also somehow limited his career.

“The thing about Nick is that even when he’s surrounded by people on the level of Charlize and Dennis Hopper, he’s so into it you almost don’t notice he’s acting. He sort of flies under the radar, and you need to pay really close attention to notice just how good he is. He really does pick off-the-wall pictures to do and just gravitates towards these meatier, more difficult roles. This part is particularly understated, too. There’s a lot going on, but it’s all internalized.”

The actor agrees that he’s inclined toward recessive parts, and that this one—an emotionally paralyzed abuse victim learning to nurture himself while caring for a thorny child—is exceptionally introspective. For many viewers, Zac Stanford’s script raises more character questions than it answers. For Stahl, this kind of sketchiness is an invitation to be even more creative.

“I’ve always been a less-is-more kind of guy. If something is kind of apparent to the audience and doesn’t need to be spelled out, I prefer that. I’m wary of scripts that are more about a writer showing off his skills as opposed to letting a character live and breathe.”

Which is not to say that Stahl would balk at romantic comedies or wisecracking action flicks.

“It’s not that I’m at all opposed to doing bigger, more mainstream movies—if they’re good,” the actor declares. “People see you in a certain type of films, and those are the parts that come to you. I think if there’s one thread that connects my work is that they tend towards the darker side. I’m often cast in heavier material, and that doesn’t tend to translate to bigger budgets.”

Next up, he’s already completed The Speed of Thought, a thriller shot in Uruguay. It’s a drama, but at least the shoot was warm.

“From now on,” he concludes with a laugh, “I’m picking films based solely on location.”