Ginnifer Goodwin: she would have been happy doing church-basement theater, but this actress had to settle for working with Julia Roberts

A feel-good hybrid of Dead Poets Society (1989) and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, the December drama Mona Lisa Smile stars Julia Roberts as a sage professor at Wellesley College circa 1953, who touches the lives of four students played by Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Stiles, and Ginnifer Goodwin. If you're looking at the latter name asking "Who?" chances are you're not alone. Even Goodwin--"as my mama says, I'm a Southern lady, so my [first] name is to be pronounced 'gin,'"--is in awe of her place among the A-list cast. The animated 22-year-old Memphis native is, after all, making her big-screen debut. "To co-star alongside these incredible girls in my first Hollywood experience blows my mind," she says. "I would've been happy doing church-basement theater for years."

In her next movie, Robert Luketic's spring comedy Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!, Goodwin takes a 180-degree turn from her dour, insecure student in Mona Lisa. "It was so fun!" she gushes. "My character's overly confident, overly sexual ... I'm Joan Cusack in Working Girl [1988]."

Scott Lyle Cohen is Interview's senior editor.

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