In the final scene of Secretary, 2002’s sizzling S&M comedy, Maggie Gyllenhaal waves her on-screen husband, James Spader, off to work. As he drives away, the camera swings around to study Gyllenhaal, whose gaze turns from her disappearing husband to face the audience. There is a glint in her big blue eyes, a final, knowing confirmation that, despite the outward trappings of her submissive relationship, her character, Lee Holloway, knows exactly what she is doing. She wields the power in their relationship. She is in control.

It was a prescient scene. “Five years ago, when I made Secretary,” says the 28-year-old Gyllenhaal, fidgeting in her chair in a downtown New York hotel, “that was a huge risk on the director’s part, to put an unknown in that role. I’ve always looked for projects that are interesting or that have moved me, but you don’t always have that much say at the beginning. I was lucky with that movie; my going from having no power in Hollywood to having some power is incredibly unusual.”

Working with such cinematic luminaries as Richard Kelly, John Sayles and Charlie Kaufman has given Gyllenhaal a rich source of new challenges. And, until she became pregnant by her fiancé, the actor Peter Sarsgaard, she has worked diligently. Now, such is the unpredictable nature of Hollywood release schedules, her last two years’ work — comprising four very different films — is set to arrive in cinemas over the next few months. With the accompanying press tours and a baby due at any moment, it seems Gyllenhaal is breathing new life into the word “labour”.

“I have made movies that I’ve not liked, but these four, Trust the Man, World Trade Center, Sherrybaby and Stranger Than Fiction, I’m really proud of them all, and that makes it much easier to go out and talk about them,” she says. “When you don’t like the movie it can be unbearable.” Even more so if you’re eight months pregnant. “It’s a sad state of things, but I don’t feel I can tell journalists when the baby is due,” she smiles. “I feel my first job as a mother is to keep my baby out of all this.”

BACKGROUND

• Sherrybaby

• She's no wallflower

A star and ‘momma-lion’

As the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal’s star continues to rise, she is fighting to protect her family’s privacy

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News of the pregnancy was disclosed earlier this year, with Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard, her partner since 2002, announcing their engagement in April. The actress remains unwilling to discuss her personal life, but does concede that talking about her forthcoming films — three of which have her character in some way linked to motherhood — has made her think about her next rather demanding role.

“I made these films before I became pregnant,” she says. “So I’m not sure if any of these experiences has prepared me for motherhood. Although I think Sherrybaby, for example, is in many ways about becoming a mother. Giving birth does not make you a mother and it’s not until the end of that movie that Sherry realises that.”

The film, written and directed by Laurie Collyer, is an intensely moving story of a recovering drug addict, Sherry, who struggles to reconnect with her daughter after a spell in prison. “The thing about this movie,” Gyllenhaal continues, “is that it has its finger on the pulse of how people really behave; that you could be furious at someone and then buy them a gift and tell them that you really love them. That’s fascinating to watch.”

The complexity of human relationships also drives Trust the Man. A wise and wry sex comedy that blends sharp dialogue with slapstick silliness, the film recalls the comic work of Woody Allen, allowing its cast — Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup and the surprisingly witty David Duchovny — to wring true emotion from their characters. Gyllenhaal plays Elaine, whose realisation that she wants a child causes her to outgrow her relationship.

“Trust the Man is about the trials of relationships,” explains Gyllenhaal, “and there’s this idea that as a man you’re unwilling to commit. Although I don’t think it’s as simple as that, even in the movie. Elaine just wants her man to be a man. This film’s very wise in that way, and Bart (Freundlich, the director) was very open to our input when trying to get that across. As an actress I work best when I have an artistic opinion about how I want to approach a scene or character. It’s not always the same as a director imagined.”

Gyllenhaal’s filmic determination stems directly from her upbringing: she was born in New York and raised in Los Angeles by an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (her mother Naomi Foner) and an accomplished film and TV director (Stephen Gyllanhaal). Her first two films, 1992’s Waterland and 1993’s A Dangerous Woman, were directed by her father, and in the breakthrough Donnie Darko she played second fiddle to her brother, Jake.

But it meant that by the time she had finished her degree in Eastern religion and literature and embarked on her acting career, she was well versed in storytelling and character.

That education has armed Gyllenhaal with the ability to recognise good scripts, and she was struck by the emotion and vitality crackling through Andrea Berloff’s World Trade Center, and by the intriguing subtleties of Stranger Than Fiction, an inventive comedy written by Hollywood’s new golden boy Zach Helm. The latter, in particular, represents a departure for Gyllenhaal, whose confidence in the writer, and in its director, Marc Foster, swayed her decision to embrace a larger, studio movie.

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