Maggie Gyllenhaal being a mum’s made me a better actress

Maggie Gyllenhaal has said she thinks being a mum has helped her with her acting career.

Maggie and fiance Peter Sarsgaard welcomed daughter Romana into the world in October 2006 and the actress took a break from Hollywood for the first year of her daughter’s life.

But returning to the big screen in the new Batman film The Dark Knight, she explained recently that she felt changed professionally as well as personally by Romana’s arrive: “I think having a child changes everything and has deepened everything in my life. I think it has deepened my acting.

“It really does crack you open in every way. I never knew that I could be so tired. I never knew that I could work so hard. I never knew that I could love so much or be so patient or be so excited by the tiniest, tiniest little thing. Everything about it has surprised me.”

She added that it was the unique challenge of The Dark Knight that convinced her to step back in front of the camera: “I do think that it’s really difficult to get me away from [Ramona].

“It’s difficult to find a script that’s good enough for me to think, ‘Okay, I really need to do this instead of being with my daughter.’

“Some people have asked me whether I’ll choose things that … have a more sort of child-appropriate content, and I don’t think so. I think I’ll choose what’s interesting to me.”