In the movie, Krysta Now finds an amnesiac action-movie star, Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson), in the desert, and the couple become key characters in the epic drama-comedy, set on the eve of an unspecified apocalypse.

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Gellar, best known as TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, jumped at the chance of playing the character. "Just because it was something so different, and she was becoming sort of this amazing character that no one had seen," Gellar said. "And I just thought, 'How exciting to do something just so the antithesis of what would generally be expected of me.' And I think that's what I hope for as a career. I never want to be the girl that you expect to see in something. I want to be 'Whoa, I didn't expect that.' Or 'I didn't see that happening.'"

Krysta Now is inadvertently funny, but Gellar didn't play it that way. "Dwayne and I talked about it," Gellar said. "And although at its heart I do believe this movie is a dark comedy, I think what's funny is when the characters are not self-aware. And I think what makes Krysta funny is that she doesn't realize she's funny. If it becomes too nod-nod, wink-wink, I think the audience is like, 'Oh, I get it.' But I think the humor comes from the fact that she says the most ridiculous things, which she truly believes in. And to me, that's what's funny." Southland Tales opens Nov. 14.