When Ginnifer Goodwin tells me she is "a terrible snob," I have to choke back a laugh. If anything, the Memphis, Tennesse, native is closer to her sweet character, Margene, on HBO's Monday series Big Love - which began its second season on June 11 - than she is a snob. But as she tells it, the path of her career thus far has put her in a league that any actor would envy.

"I do tend to pick projects which stimulate me utterly, make me think and make me question," she says. "One of the challenges of being an actress, stepping into someone else's shoes and understanding that character's mindset without judging, is one of the most thrilling things to me about acting."

Creative fulfilment

It's that enthusiasm and quest for creative fulfilment that have set the 29-year-old apart from her peers since her film debut opposite Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile.

Taking home a Movieline Young Hollywood award right out of the gate might have sent other up-and-comers straight into a club-hopping, paparazzi-stalked night life, but not Goodwin.

With an in-the-business support system that includes friends such as Topher Grace and Chris Klein, Goodwin has found a non-Hollywood Hollywood life that doesn't involve frequent appearances in Us Weekly or on Access Hollywood - and that's just the way she likes it.

Movie stardom

"I want to be an actress. I'm not going after this to be a celebrity. If I never reach movie stardom, it really is irrelevant to me. I just want to keep working on projects (in which) I am in love with the material."

Currently warming Goodwin's heart is Big Love. Even though playing baby-wrangling third wife Margene has proved useful as "an amazing form of birth control," she is thrilled that the youngest wife of Bill Paxton's polygamist patriarch is going to fight back against her "punching-bag" status this season.

- Sarah Schoolcraft, Zap2it