A new role for Maggie: mommy
The top half of Maggie Gyllenhaal is all gussied-up, camera-ready movie star.
Her brown hair is softly braided and wrapped around her head, her blue eyes and plump lips lightly but meticulously made up. Her billowy purple top camouflages her pregnant belly.
Her bottom half is practical, relaxed, working mom-to-be, in fitted dark jeans with sandals that reveal chipped, dark toenail polish.
Gyllenhaal, a self-described clotheshorse, has other things on the brain. Like the baby she and actor fiance Peter Sarsgaard (“Shattered Glass,” “Jarhead”) are expecting this fall.
And her new film, “World Trade Center,” in which she plays Allison Jimeno, pregnant wife of a Port Authority officer missing on 9/11.
For Gyllenhaal, 28, who graduated from Columbia University and lives in the West Village with Sarsgaard, 35, and their two cats, “seeing the Port Authority bus rushing downtown (on screen), and recognizing the corner of Greenwich and Canal, made me feel very proud to be a New Yorker. I know those places. That’s my city.”
She’s equally proud of the film itself.
“This movie was really made out of honesty, out of a desire to honor people who did an incredibly brave thing,” says the sister of “Brokeback Mountain” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal.
She famously remarked at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival that “America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way” for the terrorist attacks.
Today, she eschews politics and instead praises director Oliver Stone: “Everyone is so scared of what take he’ll have on the subject, and it’s so interesting to me that it’s the most gentle and genuine take I’ve seen.”
Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard, who met three years ago at a dinner party, have no immediate plans to get married. She is busy promoting two other films: the romantic comedy “Trust the Man,” opening Friday, and the low-budget drama “Sherrybaby,” out Aug. 25.
They also want to settle in as parents first.
“As much as I tried to imagine what pregnancy would be like, it’s totally different,” says Gyllenhaal, rubbing her belly. “It’s blown my mind every step of the way.”
Gyllenhaal, who initially had morning sickness, now feels “blissed out. It’s part of it, all the hormones. It feels great. It’s a real intense experience.”
The only downside? “We do have the paparazzi after us now. They like pregnant actresses. They get 20 pictures of me doing nothing. It’s weird.”
She expects to someday work with Sarsgaard on camera.
“Peter always says we shouldn’t play lovers,” she says. “He wants to do something 1940s –where there’s a spark between us, but we don’t ever get together. Or we do for a second, and then I slap him.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Alice Ghostley (“Designing Women”) is 80. Singer David Crosby is 65. Actor-comedian Steve Martin is 61. Actress Susan St. James is 60. Romance novelist Danielle Steel is 59. Cartoonist Gary Larson (“The Far Side”) is 56. Actress Jackee Harry (“Sister, Sister”) is 50. Singer Sarah Brightman is 45. Actress Susan Olsen (“The Brady Bunch”) is 45. Actress Halle Berry is 40. Actress Catherine Bell (“JAG”) is 38. Actress Mila Kunis (“That ‘70s Show”) is 23.