Maggie Gyllenhaal felt “important” when she was “swarmed” by photographers - before realizing they were looking for Tom Cruise.

The Dark Knight star and husband Peter Sarsgaard are usually able to walk around New York unnoticed so were amazed when “tons” of paparazzi came into a cafe where they were enjoying coffee, only to then be ignored.

“There were a ton of paparazzi in the cafe with their huge cameras and laptops. I was like, ‘Peter, oh my God, they are so into us. They’re swarming us. We are so important.’ It turns out Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise were living on that street. It was the winter, so the photographers would go into the cafe to download their pictures.”

Maggie is currently promoting Crazy Heart, the first movie she worked on after giving birth to daughter Ramona three years ago, and admits she finds it difficult to balance parenthood with her career: “Every night you can’t put your kid to sleep, that’s pretty intense. In my family, that’s a big kind of get-together time - dinner, bath and stories and then bed.”

However, the actress insists it is very important for her to work and be a mother. She explained, “When my daughter was about 15 months, I started to feel like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve just been completely focused on being a mother for a long time. I just got overwhelmed, this feeling of, ‘I’m an actress, too.’ You can’t be an empty shell and be a good mother, too.”