For years Parker Posey was known as Sundance's "queen" for dominating the festival with multiple flicks and hard-to-ignore performances. Posey's moved on (a little flick called "Superman Returns"), but a new star has grabbed her throne: Maggie Gyllenhaal.

"The festival has been so supportive of me," Gyllenhaal says as she takes a break to chat during a chaotic press schedule. "It has given me the encouragement to take hard choices."

Choices such as her acclaimed performance as the assistant with a secret side in "Secretary" or the free spirit looking for love in last year's "Happy Endings." This year, Gyllenhaal is back in "Sherrybaby." The drama finds Gyllenhaal playing a recently released convict and drug abuser trying to insert herself back into her young daughter's life. It's a difficult role that Gyllenhaal beautifully portrays and it will be tough for any audience not to be sympathetic to her character's plight.

Most screenplays find actors through their agents or managers, but Gyllenhaal got a tip on "Sherrybaby." The script was developed at the Sundance Lab, and Gyllenhaal's mother, screenwriter Naomi Foner ("Running on Empty"), was a mentor for writer and director Laurie Collyer.

"I'm totally trying to keep that out of the press," she admits sheepishly. "Because my family is so well-known in the industry, I don't really like to use their connections. I try to keep it personal. But, she sent me the script, and I liked it a lot the first time I read it."

Gyllenhaal has never really researched her roles before, but this film was different.

"I remember for 'Secretary' people would always ask, 'Did you research S&M?' and I didn't," she says. "[That role] just came from a place deep inside me."

For "Sherrybaby," Gyllenhaal met a woman who had just gotten out of jail and saw what her life was like, which included regular meetings with a parole officer. The experience made Gyllenhaal realize that for these women "it's so hard to keep your head above water."

"Sherrybaby" is still searching for a distributor, but audiences won't have to wait long to see Gyllenhaal in their local theater. She's just wrapped Marc Forster's "Stranger Than Fiction" alongside Will Ferrell and is heading back to Los Angeles to finish her last three days on Oliver Stone's Sept. 11 drama "World Trade Center."

"What Sundance does is invaluable," she says. "And, at this point, I'm much more inclined to chose an independent. But, who doesn't sell out a little?"

Realizing she won't have a picture at next year's festival, Gyllenhaal laughs and says, "I don't want them to take my crown away!"

She has nothing to worry about. Even the queen gets to take a vacation every once and a while.