By Jenny Halper in New York City

Maggie insisted right at the beginning that Jude show complexities. In her relationship with Otis, she was actually interested in whether he was gay or not. She wanted to fall in love with Frank, to show us that she was the kind of person who could fall in love. She had a lot of complexities, she wanted Jude to have a lot more depth, and I was really grateful for that.
-“Happy Endings” Writer/Director Don Roos

“We all owe this movie to the fact that Maggie said yes,” Don Roos told press, and his praise doesn’t come as a surprise. Though the actress is certainly best known for her daring portrayal of a love-struck masochist in “Secretary,” she’s turned in a bevy of scene-stealing performances in films like “Casa de Los Babys” and “Mona Lisa Smile.”

2005 may prove a banner year for Gyllenhaal, who stars in a slew of eagerly awaited flicks including “The Great New Wonderful” “Trust the Man” and Dreamworks’ next performance capture film, “Monster House.” (In recent years she’s also honed her skills on stage, playing Brits in critically acclaimed productions of “Closer” and “Homebody/Kabul.”)

The actress, who was unsurprisingly bombarded with questions about sex, took time to talk with press about her role in “Happy Endings.” She joins Roos’ complex ensemble as Jude, a drifting singer who comes between Frank, a wealthy father (Tom Arnold) and Otis, his closeted gay son (Jason Ritter).

Q: I read that Debra Winger once had lunch at your house dressed as her character (in “A Dangerous Woman,” directed by Maggie’s dad, Stephen)…

MAGGIE: Oh, I must have told this story sometime! (laughs)

Q: And you said you started acting like your characters? Do you have a hard time shaking off your character once a film is through?

MAGGIE: When I say that, it’s mistier than that, it’s not like I’m playing a murderer and all of the sudden I feel like killing people, it’s subtler than that. When I was playing Jude- we shot this movie in two weeks- first of all. Sometimes when you’re working on something for a long time- I made a movie after that where I played a girl that just got out of prison and we shot it very very quickly but very very intensely, and that took me a long time to get over. But this one- Jude- it’s complicated, because I think Jude is really pained but very deep inside. And broken, but really deep inside, and all of my energy was towards making her survive, making her beautiful, making her sexy and awake, so the pain, and the way that she’s broken I didn’t have to focus on so much. I was totally focused on the ways that were healthy. So I felt pretty good on this movie. And we were lounging around in this beautiful house in LA, and I’m coming from NY, so sometimes when we weren’t working I would just sit on those folding chairs, if I took on anything it was the carefree, lovely stuff about her. Because the other stuff, if I indulged that it, would have been much less healthy.

Q: She’s a fairly ambiguous character. Did you come up with a back story?

MAGGIE: I always kind of admonish myself for not doing that more literally, but lately I’ve realized I don’t work that literally. But I do have some sense of some of that stuff, but it’s more unconscious, hazy, and things will occur to me? I kind of think she came from the south but I’m not sure? Jude’s kind of hazy, you don’t know where she’s from, I think I took that on in the way that I prepared.

Q: What happens to her? We don’t see Jude’s happy ending.

MAGGIE: I don’t know. I actually really- I feel like I really like made her a real person kind of. She feels like a real person to me- it’s not so literal as that, I don’t know, I see her singing, I think singing is the one thing she really grabs on to.

Q: What happens sexually?

MAGGIE: I really don’t know how to answer that. Someone who’s twenty six, twenty seven has a very different relationship to sex than someone who’s thirty. I’m not in my thirties yet, but I know that I’d like to think that she grows.

Q: Do you generally get offered overtly sexual characters?

MAGGIE: Most people in the world are interested in seeing 27 year old women who are in movies somehow connected to sex. It’s interesting to everyone, it’s how come we’re here. Especially little movies, that are having trouble getting made, there’s always sex. For me, I think sex is very interesting for most people, but for me, in my life and in my work, I’m interested in sex as a way of communication, I’m not that interested in the fantasy version of a sex scene where everything’s like a soft core porn movie. I’m interested in why communicate this thing through sex? Is there no other way to communicate this thing? It’s another way of talking, for some people now, it’s the way that they communicate. Everybody in their life if they’re, if they’re having sex, even if you will not communicate at all. The one thing I’m not interested in is the fantasy version of sex.

Q: Has “Secretary” precipitated that image?

MAGGIE: I think “Secretary”’s funny, it is about sex, and there’s a lot of sex in it, sex is the key, but you’re talking about a lot of other complicated things. I just worked with Julianne Moore (on “Trust the Man”) who I think includes her sexuality in everything she does, and is naked a lot and is in her forties, or Diane Lane, they’re both older actresses- older than me- who are super sexy and sexy in the work they do. I think it’s part of all of our narratives.

Q: You did make “Casa de los Babys,” which isn’t about sex…

MAGGIE: It’s not like I’m only compelled to tell stories about sex! (laughs) I was interested in John (Sayles) and his movie, I was interested in the politics of it, I was interested in working with the other actresses. I’m not sure if it’s even in the movie or not, but there was something to me that was really compelling about that woman, already knowing she couldn’t get pregnant. When I made that movie I was- I can’t remember how old I was, I’m twenty seven now- I think maybe I was twenty four, I was young, and to be twenty four and already know you can’t get pregnant, that was really interesting to me. Also to be so much younger than everyone else there, it was an interesting dynamic.

Q: You do a lot of independents. Do you have any interest in big-budget films?

MAGGIE: I just made a movie that was much bigger called “Stranger than Fiction” with Will Ferrell and Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah, and Marc Forster directed. I’m 27 years old, and when I first started I was 22, 23, and I thought, “I’m making this movie for me, it’s not for you, I don’t care if people see it.” I was younger, I had a different point of view about it. Now I do want people to see my movies, I make them because I believe in what they have to say, and I want to have some effect on the way the world works in whatever way I can, and I also want to have the power to help get the movies that I think are important made. At the same time, acting is something that’s really important to me, so I think it would be really hard for me to do something I didn’t believe in.

Q: Can you talk about working with Tom Arnold? He did a great job in the film.

MAGGIE: Someone else could have played his part in the movie, and we would have made so many judgments about him- the older guy who buys girls stuff, and not respected him. And I think that what makes Don’s characters so compelling. You really respect them, and they’re not perfect, but who is?

“Happy Endings” opened on July 15th.