It was almost a case of life imitating art for the 32-year-old actress, who told Pop Tarts she couldn’t keep up with the demands of movies and motherhood after she and husband Peter Sarsgaard had their first child together in 2006.

“Mrs. Green literally had a birds nest in her hair and children hanging from the chandelier and she kept saying she was fine. I was definitely like that. When my daughter was first born I kept saying ‘I don’t need anybody, I’m just going to do this by myself.’ I thought I could make a home, be a good wife, and do all these things. I thought ‘I’m just going to call my mom,’” Gyllenhaal told Pop Tarts at a special screening of the film in New York City last week. “But I have since realized that wasn’t realistic for me…It’s okay not to be able to do everything all the time, to fail as a parent sometimes. Now I have a wonderful nanny. I am somebody who spends every possible minute I can with my daughter – I really believe that’s important, but I do need help.”

Gyllenhaal is also convinced that the positive energy that came from Emma Thompson’s fantastical Nanny McPhee rubbed off even when she left the set.

“I believe this movie must have brought me good nanny karma because I found a lovely, lovely nanny for my daughter – I just thank god for her,” she added.

Gyllenhaal said caring for children as a single parent is a concept many relate to in 2010.

“Your husband doesn’t need to be at war [like hers is in the movie] to be up against it. Coping and not coping – it’s a very fine line,” Thompson said. “Maybe you’re away for work, or the parents are divorced, but it’s a very contemporary issue.”

As for her own magical mothering tips?

“You don’t always have to solve their (the kids) problems, just sit with them,” Thompson suggested. “Just being with them and not saying anything can do so much.”

Gallery Links:
Television Appereances > CBS The Early Show – August 19 2010

“One thing I learned as a mother was I started out having babysitters that were young and lovely, bright, great girls, but they left,” the married mom, 32, says during the Nanny McPhee Returns special screening to benefit the Lollipop Theater Network held this week in NYC. ”When you think about it, when I was 23, there was nothing that was particularly going to keep me other than what was pulling my heart. I have a grown-up nanny now. There’s a different level of responsibility when you get to be a grown-up.”

When it comes to nannies, Maggie sees the dark side of Mary Poppins.

“Mary Poppins was a complicated lady,” she says. “Yeah, she’s hanging out with her boyfriend basically – Dick Van Dyke played her boyfriend – and she’s with the kids. She was a narcissist, but she’s also pretty great. That’s one thing I’ve realized watching Mary Poppins a lot with my daughter. Julie Andrews is pretty amazing. She’s pretty incredible.”

What movies does Maggie enjoy with her daughter?

“Right now, we’ve been watching – what she’s been liking and I’ve been liking too – are Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movies. They’re really cool. There’s dancing, beautiful dresses, simple plot.”

Emma Thompson, who plays the iconic caretaker in Nanny McPhee, admits she was turned off by nannies when her au pair ate her “sweeties” at age 7.

She compares the chemistry between fictional nannies Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee.

“I love Mary Poppins, but how would they respond to each other? I think Mary Poppins would say to Nanny McPhee ‘you really need to get in touch’ and Nanny McPhee would say that Mary Poppins was a bit of a showoff.”

Director Susanna White sings Maggie’s praises in the motherhood department. Her twin daughters got to know Maggie’s Ramona during their time on the set.

“Maggie’s absolutely wonderful as a mom. Very loving and sweet, but also, like any good parent, there are boundaries for her daughter. Her daughter knows what she can and can’t do, which is a way to feel secure. I think she’s a wonderful mother.”

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Maggie Gyllenhaal shot to the top of public consciousness with her unnerving performance in Secretary. Her stellar string of film work continued with Mona Lisa Smile, SherryBaby, Stranger Than Fiction, The Dark Knight and Crazy Heart.

Maggie may we talk?

SheKnows: As the maternal influence over five children on the Nanny McPhee Returns set, what was your most memorable scene with the kids?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: I like the scene, which took us five days [to shoot], which I’ve never done before, not on Dark Knight, not on Mona Lisa Smile, any of these movies, ever. Five days shooting was this scene where I come home from work and the skies are saying, “The person you need is Nanny McPhee.” I’m covered in syrup, I come home and the kids are fighting, everything’s crazy. I’m kind of hallucinating. She comes in and brings order. That whole madcap scene, that was my favorite.

SheKnows: I was told that one of the child actors cried after you set off back to America.

Maggie Gyllenhaal: They’re great kids. Also, that was part of my job to make it believable that I was a mother to them. It felt real. Also, when you’re working with kids, it’s different than grown-ups. Emma and I would be on our knees behind the camera making fart noises, or saying a line for them over and over again fifteen different ways to get different reactions from them. You get invested in them in a different way.

SheKnows: Ever get crazy like that at home for you?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Well, I have one child. I don’t know, if I had to take care of five children alone and try to make a farm run and work at a general store, I think it would be possible to get that crazy.

SheKnows: How did you keep the energy level up for scenes like that? Five days!

Maggie Gyllenhaal: It’s hard. It’s not what comes most easily to me. The crazy hard stuff, that’s my gig. I love that. Shoot it quick, that’s my thing. This technical work is more of a challenge, but I liked it. That’s what’s difficult is how do you keep it fresh and alive.

Maggie makes it work

SheKnows: The clothes of your character were so warm with bright colors, how much input into the process did you have?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: I always input into the wardrobe, that’s how I like to work. Emma said at one point when we were talking about the wardrobe, that she thought that Mrs Green should feel like an English garden that you just want to lie down in. I agree. Then, Jacqueline Durran, who did the wardrobe, is the most collaborative wardrobe costume designer I’ve ever worked with, constantly interested in what I felt. I think that Mrs Green is somebody who does care about what she looks like and loves getting dressed up. She just doesn’t have the time to consider it. She strikes me as the type of person who is heading out and would grab a flower and just stick it in her hair [laughs]. You think about those things when you’re a mother and don’t have time to spend too much time on your clothes. I, personally, always have a hair band on my wrist in case I, or my daughter needs it. I think Mrs Green has those kinds of things, you know, when you reach in your pocket and pull out a bag of cheerios [laughs]. How did this get there? Oh yeah, I remember [laughs].

SheKnows: The mud looked like it was everywhere on the Nanny McPhee Returns set, was it ever simply too much [laughs]?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: I’ll tell you a funny story. In the flashback scene where I’m in the wedding dress, we were shooting it and I guess someone from props was trying to be helpful and put down a yoga mat because I was going to have to step out of this horse drawn carriage into the mud. My husband was going to carry me out from the mud into the house so I wouldn’t get dirty. So, I come out of the carriage and I stepped on it and slipped. I completely bit it in this wedding dress in the mud. It was a tiny little flashback, so we only had one wedding dress.

SheKnows: Oh my…

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Yes! It was the first take with this dress and this yoga mat killed it. We made it work. I liked the mud. It was kind of a funny challenge. It makes everything funnier.

Maggie Gyllenhaal goes UK

SheKnows: Your English accent was impeccable. Where did it come from?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: At first I thought I wanted to sound like Susanna [White, the director] who has a beautiful accent. She has a beautiful English accent, which is difficult for me to hear what they hear – the class that’s in the accent. I think that Mrs Green is someone who grew up pretty wealthy in the city and moved to the country. So she shouldn’t sound really posh, but a little bit. In the end, it was just the accent that came to me. I don’t know why.

SheKnows: Working with Rhys Ifans, this was a unique role for him as your brother-in-law trying to steal the farm. How did you find Rhys?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Most of my work in the movie was with the children, five children ranging in age from five-and-a-half to 13 and animals and pretend animals [laughs] — working on real scenes that required proper acting. Emma’s script is no joke. I would be driving these huge dialogue scenes with kids and animals and that was most of my experience in the movie and it was fun. But, it was hard. Then, one day, I get to work, deep into the filming of the movie, to shoot this scene with Rhys. They were going to shoot it all in one take, us walking down a road trying to get me to sell the farm. They’re just going to follow us doing the scene. It has to be done perfectly. Like in Crazy Heart, for example, there is no such thing as perfect in that movie. If you’ve done your work and respond to the other person, anything can happen. In a movie like this, if you have to have a vase fall on your head because it’s funny and need to say this line, you need to be standing in one spot so the vase can fall on your head. So, it’s a different kind of technical work. So, I get to work to do the scene with Rhys, and I’m used to all these other scenes, not with grown-ups, and we start to do the scene and it was like awesome! It was like, “You’re a grown-up! You’re an expert.” It was super fun [laughs]. We couldn’t make a mistake.

SheKnows: Now sharing screen time with legend Maggie Smith must have been a treasure. Or, were you intimidated at all by her?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: I heard that Maggie doesn’t suffer fools gladly and could be scary. I was really scared to work with her. Thank God she likes me! She’d say amazing things. I heard her on the phone talking to her son after work one day. I could tell he said on the other line, “What time are you going to be home?” She said, “Oh, I don’t know. How long is a piece of string?” [Laughs] She literally did tell stories like the how now brown cow stories. Those were amazing.

SheKnows: Emma seemed to get a lot of her friends to join the cast. As one of the lone Americans in the film, how were you embraced by these UK acting legends?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: Am I the only American? Wow.

SheKnows: Yes, you are.

Maggie Gyllenhaal: You know, it felt very English — the whole thing [laughs]. The way Emma was with Peter, my husband, she was so thankful to him for giving me to her for months. She thanked Peter for staying and taking care of Ramona. Thank you, thank you. She felt that part of her job was to take care of me and make me comfortable. I didn’t need that, but I appreciated it. I like English people. My family has shot a lot in England. We did Dark Knight in London and Peter did An Education there, then we did Nanny McPhee there for four months. We’re going back in the fall. We’re used to it in some ways, it really is different. I don’t think I realized as clearly until I was halfway through this movie how true it is, the cultural differences. I think for the most part, you do have to do some translating. The same behavior doesn’t mean the same thing as it does here. Another thing, I got much more quick witted. That’s really a muscle you work there. That’s part of being American too, part of being socially agile here. But, it’s really everywhere there and if you can’t keep up, you can’t have a conversation. I remember thinking that the back part of my brain, the witty part, got a real workout [laughs].

SheKnows: How do you see Nanny McPhee Returns? Is it solely a children’s movie?

Maggie Gyllenhaal: It’s definitely a film for children, but extremely gratifying for adults. I cried watching it. I felt it was so true. I’m interested in what entertains children’s minds. I probably wasn’t as interested until I had one [laughs]. I think that is what is so special about it is it really is appealing to anyone that is a human being.

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We loved her in “Secretary,” “SherryBaby” and “Happy Endings.” If you’re a real student of indie films, you might even remember “Mona Lisa Smile,” “Donnie Darko” and “Cecil B. Demented.”

Jake Gyllenhaal‘s older sister likes to surprise her fans with the diversity of her roles, and now she is really surprising people by starring in a big-studio family film called “Nanny McPhee Returns,” which opens Friday.

The sequel to the 2006 hit “Nanny McPhee” was written and executive produced by Emma Thompson, who also reprises her role as the mysterious and magical nanny who drops into the lives of needy families. The unattractive nanny somehow gets better-looking as the movie progresses, without the benefit of cosmetic surgery.

Gyllenhaal, 32, plays the mother of three children trying to cope during wartime after she receives word that her husband is missing in action.

When she walks into a suite at a Los Angeles hotel, the actress is taller than one expects (5-foot-9), and her clear blue eyes are spectacular. She has a girlish, high-pitched voice, but she has a serious and thoughtful manner, as befitting a graduate of Columbia University, and a new mother. Gyllenhaal and actor husband Peter Sarsgaard‘s daughter Ramona will turn 4 in October.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER: What’s a nice indie actress like you doing in a family film like this?

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Actually, I’ve done a lot of different kinds of movies, including big studio movies like “The Dark Knight” and “Stranger Than Fiction.” This one appealed to me primarily because of the script, which was great, and because of Emma. I wanted to be around her. As for the family movie aspect, this is that rare family movie that really respects children, and really considers what children are actually thinking about.

Q. Is that important to you now that you are a mother?

A. I think so. Because I am a mom, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about children and what they’re thinking. I think that it happens naturally. Before, I wasn’t interested in those things, and now I am. It’s not that I wanted to make a movie that my daughter could see. It’s just more appealing to me.

Q. Is the acting different in a family film than in some of the edgier films you’ve been in, or is acting just acting regardless of the genre?

A. The genre does make a difference in the way I work. For instance, in “Crazy Heart,” if you’ve done your homework and learned your lines, there are no surprises and there is no way you’re going to make a mistake. You might feel something surprising, and you might react to that emotional surprise, but there’s another person in the scene to react to what you’ve done. If you’re open to rolling with that, great work can happen. This movie is different because if you’re supposed to stand in a particular place because a vase is supposed to fall on your head for comic effect, you need to be standing in that particular place, say that particular line at that particular time, so it’s much more technical. There are so many technical beats to hit, while still playing a human being. Throw children and animals into the scene, and it becomes the most difficult acting I’ve ever done.

Q. Besides what you said before about how it respects kids, what is it that you like about this movie?

A. Along with the synchronized swimming pigs and the magic, there are real subjects being discussed in this movie, like divorce, death, war, love and struggling families. These are things that are on children’s minds. It’s a fun and funny film, but it teaches children how to be good people. And for moms, it teaches you how to manage the unmanageable, and accept that you can’t be a perfect mother all the time. If you try, it will bring you to your knees.

Q. Did you know that four years ago before your daughter was born, or is that something you’ve picked up since motherhood?

A. I didn’t know it then.

Q. Did you think motherhood would be easier than it turned out to be?

A. I just didn’t have a clue. I don’t think that’s something you can know. There’s no way to prepare for the challenges, the immense joys, the surprises, the disappointments and the shocks. Your heart just rips open. It’s amazing.

Q. Do you think you’re a better person because of it?

A. I do, but it’s hard to tell. Being a mother is such a big part of my life now.

Q. Are you a better actress because of it?

A. I am.

Q. In what way?

A. I don’t know, but I am. Of course, part of it is just getting older. I might be a better actress now because of that. From 28 to 32 are important growing years.

Q. But there must be some aspect of motherhood that you can identify as making you a better actress?

A. I think motherhood does remind you how out of control you can be. Maybe that’s it.

Q. You made your first six films with your dad (filmmaker Stephen Gyllenhaal), and I was wondering …

A. No. No. That’s not right.

Q. I’m sorry; I read that somewhere.

A. Perhaps in very small roles or walk-ons, but I would say that is inaccurate.

Q. I stand corrected, but you did appear in some of his films, and I was wondering who came to who first? Did your parents put the notion of acting in your head, or were you always interested in acting?

A. I think it’s a little of both. When you grow up in the business, you hear it talked about all the time. You meet people who love movies, and value movies. These were people who made movies well, like Debra Winger. She worked with my parents, and I admired her approach to acting very much. I learned that acting was a way of expressing yourself, and a way of viewing the world. At the same time, I always wanted to act. I can’t remember not wanting to act.

Q. There are not a lot of silly choices on your résumé. Do you think the influences of being around people who did serious work had an impact on the kind of career you wanted to have?

A. Mostly, I’ve been lucky enough to make the movies that interested me. Some of them turned out the way I had hoped, and some didn’t. I think my choices are made because I value acting, and I don’t think it’s something to take for granted. I don’t believe in doing bad work for the sake of working.

Q. You must have been offered money to do some bad work?

A. I’ve read scripts that would have made me a lot of money, but I know I wouldn’t do them well because my heart was not in it. There’s just nothing to hold on to. I’d be miserable.

Q. Money has never been a factor?

A. Oh sure, money is considered. I’m not rich. But when you do an independent film with a tiny budget, it’s a three-year commitment when you figure in helping to find a distributor, going to festivals and doing publicity, so I need to feel committed to the work. Showing up for six weeks of work on somebody else’s movie is something completely different.

Q. Is it not in your nature to appear in a big studio movie?

A. I’m not saying that. A big-studio movie can be a quality project, but it’s a different level of commitment for me. I’m not afraid to do them, but if I’m going to do an independent film, then I need to really believe in it.

Q. There must be some perks to being in a big-studio movie?

A. Of course. The more people who see you, the more offers come in.

Q. Your career has moved at what I assume is an intentionally deliberate pace. Are you satisfied with the pace of your career?

A. When “Secretary” came out, I got a lot of attention all of a sudden, and it scared me a little bit. I was a little overwhelmed. So I am happy with the pace. It’s been right for me.

Q. Were you scared because you grew up in the business, and were aware of the horror stories?

A. No, I just think it scared me because it was a lot of attention that I wasn’t used to. It’s a complicated feeling.

Q. I would think that you would be accustomed to it with your family background?

A. My parents made little independent movies. I didn’t know anything about this kind of stuff.

Q. And now?

A. I don’t feel like a babe in the woods anymore. I’ve learned a lot of things. It’s like motherhood. I didn’t know anything, and now I know a lot more.

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Gallery Links:
Appearances from 2010 > Nanny McPhee Returns New York Premiere

Overwhelmed single parents with unruly kids are rescued by a magical nanny who seemingly appears out of nowhere. And at no cost! For some older moviegoers escorting little ones, this premise might be impossibly alluring. And they said fans of “Avatar” were depressed when they left the theatre.

“Nanny McPhee Returns” is the sequel to 2005′s “Nanny McPhee.” Both were written by Emma Thompson (who stars as the nanny in question) based on Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda books, which were published in the 1960s and ’70s.

That McPhee owes much to P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins is obvious, and there’s a whiff of familiarity to both Nanny McPhee movies that prevent them from being truly fresh. But there’s still a warm, British naturalism to “Nanny McPhee Returns” and an old-fashioned cheerfulness uncommon to most of today’s kids movies.

In the first installment, McPhee, a mean-looking witch clad in black, came to the aid of a widowed father (Colin Firth). This time around, she arrives to help Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal, with British accent in tow), a mother of three and wife to a farmer off fighting in World War II.

The particular war is never mentioned, but WWII is the film’s clear setting. A young nephew, Cyril Gray (Eros Vlahos) and his sister Celia (Rosie Taylor-Ritson) have been sent from their wealthy home in London to their aunt’s thatched-roofed farm house, an appalling development to their refined tastes. Eyeing the muddy farm, Cyril promptly declares it the “land of poo.”

They immediately clash with Isabel’s three children: Norman (Asa Butterfield), Megsie (Lil Woods) and Vincent (Oscar Steer). Isabel is drowning in the chaos, made worse by her ditzy candy shopkeeper (Maggie Smith).

McPhee arrives mysteriously, introducing herself (“little ‘c,’ big ‘P”’) as an “army nanny” who has been “deployed.” The government pays her way, she informs Isabel, though one can bet that free, magical nannies would surely be among those to fall victim in Britain’s current, deep budget cuts.

Thompson’s McPhee is a fairly wonderful creation. With two large moles, an overgrown front tooth, a monobrow and a protruding, bulbous nose, she appears a mean crone. But it’s all merely a facade to a deeply caring shepherd of misbehaving children: She’s the fairy godmother of tough love. As the children learn each of her five lessons, McPhee’s deformities disappear.

The main source of drama (for McPhee wins the kids over quickly) comes from Isabel’s brother-in-law, Phil (Rhys Ifans). Dressed in a shabby blue pinstripe suit, he looks like an outcast from “Guys and Dolls.” He has gambled the farm away, even though it’s only half his.

It’s worth noting that even in a cartoonish kids movie like this, what a great presence Ifans has. Since becoming known to most in 1999′s “Notting Hill,” he has steadily — and perhaps surprisingly, considering the jokiness of that early part — shown that he can enliven most any film and fill most any character. He has had a good 2010, too, appearing in the latest “Harry Potter,” archly narrating the Banksy film “Exit Through the Gift Shop” and, especially, playing Ben Stiller’s best friend in “Greenberg.”

Capably directed by Susanna White (making her feature film debut after some notable TV work) “Nanny McPhee Returns” is slightly less scatterbrained than the original, but keeps its Day-Glo Victorian palette full of colour and whimsy.

The predictable story turns (the father away at war is handled as you’d expect, with worry followed by a miraculous homecoming) and the infrequently funny dialogue keep the film from quite taking off. But one can quibble only so much with a family friendly film that so brightly preaches those not-exactly-hip tenets of country living and manners.

When McPhee and two of the children make a trip to London (awash in zeppelins and double-decker buses), they meet a former pupil of McPhee’s, now a Royal guard soldier. It’s clear that the country itself has been made from McPhee’s mettle. Cut government services warily, Britain.

“Nanny McPhee Returns,” a Universal Pictures release, is rated PG for rude humour, some language and mild thematic elements. Running time: 109 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.