Maggie Gyllenhaal: Mothers Are "Just Doing The Best They Can"

Maggie Gyllenhaal, who co-starred in the immensely successful The Dark Knight last year, is now taking a step in the opposite direction with indie film Away We Go, directed by Sam Mendes.

In the film, Maggie plays a hippie mother obsessed with back to the basics parenting. The 31–year-old actress, who is raising a 3-year old daughter Ramona with Peter Saarsgard, recently spoke with Parade.com about how she was glad she was a mom herself before taking the part.

On becoming an earth mother: "Shortly before my daughter was born, I had a fantasy that everything was going to be organic and cloth diapers. I think a lot of people are that way. And then, of course, you actually have a child you have to manage in the real world with all the complications that brings. But the woman I play is really far out when it comes to her ideas of parenting. She's still nursing her 4-year-old and the whole family sleeps in bed together. I've never gone that far."

On her greatest lesson as a mother: "If I've learned anything as a mom with a daughter who's three, I've learned that you cannot judge the way another person is raising their kid. Everybody is just doing the best they can. It's hard to be a mom. I can relate to the anxieties of having other people tell you what to do."

On mothering on and off the set: "I don't know if I could have done the movie if I wasn't a mother. I had to comfort a crying 11-month-old baby. If I hadn't been able to pull it off, we would have wasted a lot of film time. So I thought, 'Thank God, I know what to do.' Then I'd go home to my own baby daughter. So I felt like I was just doing non-stop mothering."

On the one essential for New York moms: "I had a stroller from the beginning. You can't function without a stroller in New York. Thank God for my stroller. When my daughter was born, we were sent all sorts of strollers by these stroller companies because that's one of the perks of being an actor. And so we kind of tried all of them and it was sort of like picking out your first car. We have one that is lightweight and easy to fold. I'm good with a stroller, like those moms who know how to click 'em and close 'em just before they jump on the subway."

On returning to work: "I found it very difficult to decide to do anything after my daughter was born. But I finally figured out that, as an actress, there are some things you just can't say no to. I just thought, 'How can I not work with Sam Mendes? I have to do Away We Go. But I like to take my daughter with me and it's much easier when you're doing a big studio blockbuster like The Dark Knight because there's a lot of just sitting around in your trailer. When you're doing a tiny indie film, you're working so hard you just don't have any time. You work a lot harder.”