Maggie Gyllenhaal: 'I'm an actress'

FOR MAGGIE Gyllenhaal, it's tough being a working mom, but not because of the demands of her and fiancée Peter Sarsgaard's 21-month-old daughter, Ramona. It's the interest the new baby draws.

"The paparazzi were just really awful to us," she says. "I mean, they called the fire department and told them there was a fire in our little, tiny building in the West Village so that we would have to come outside with a 5-day-old baby. So all of that was happening and I was trying to navigate my way through that when this offer [to play Rachel Dawes in 'The Dark Knight'] came. And so I thought, 'It's going to push that stuff further probably.' But what am I going to do? I'm going to hide and not do things that are appealing to me? I'm an actress."

Immediately preceding the film's release, no one's crying fire as Gyllenhaal nibbles a papaya and sips a pot of green tea during breakfast in the restaurant at Santa Monica's Casa Del Mar. But the 30-year-old indie darling's fears are nevertheless well-founded as she dives into the publicity campaign for the biggest film she has appeared in to date -- and one rife with tragedy and complexity.

When it comes to the most difficult of these -- her costar Heath Ledger's death a mere two months after the film wrapped -- Gyllenhaal speaks with candor about the actor's mental state while playing the sociopathic Joker. "For every actor, you can get to this special place with a character where nothing you can do is wrong, where you just are living that person," she says. "That's what happened with Heath. And I would say it's difficult to be that good in a movie that big, where it's about a lot of other things aside from the acting. So he really accomplished something amazing. You know, I couldn't really watch him and when I first saw him on screen I felt very emotional."

Signing onto the film also sparked a minor media circus, since Gyllenhaal was taking over the role from Katie Holmes, who had dropped out months earlier due to "scheduling conflicts." Speculation ran wild that Holmes was ousted from the franchise for bad reviews or possibly her status as Mrs. Tom Cruise.