Last year's Woman of the Year, Sigourney Weaver recently made a trip to Boston to discuss her new film, A Map of the World. An adaptation of Jane Hamilton's bestseller, the film is dominated by Sigourney's layered performance which recently garnered a Golden Globe .

THC: But A Map of the World isn't strictly drama. The comedy is less frequent, but definitely more intense.

SW: I've been to a couple of festivals and I've seen the film with an audience, and it always makes me so happy when people laugh during the important scenes. Then I know that they're with the film. It's a cathartic laugh. I think it shows how people truly cope. They don't break down, they're just like us.

THC: Could this part only have been played by someone who knows what it is to be a mother?

SW: Well I think that was really the linchpin for me. I'm not often cast as a mother, on earth, with small children, and I am a mother on earth with small children. And that is so much a part of my life, if I were a pie that would be like 80 percent of it. So it was wonderful for me to be able to flow into this part, into something I feel so strongly about, and that was one of the easiest parts of the movie for me because I didn't have to research or anything, all I had to do was show up, basically. My own feelings and impulses worked, and the kids were so great, we were like a little unit, and when I had to go off for a scene without them I really did miss them. I was missing my own daughter at the time too, so I felt like Alice in the movie, where you don't want to look at the picture because it makes them seem further away.

THC: Jane Hamilton's book, of course, was a phenomenal success. Did you have a chance to read the book before committing to the film?

SW: I was sent the screenplay, which I read first, and then I read the novel. It's interesting, for instance on The Ice Storm [1997], I started reading the novel and it was so different, I could tell that Ang Lee's concept of our story was going to be somewhat austere, and also somewhat a comedy of manners. The book was just so detailed, I actually didn't wind up reading it. But with A Map of the World I just couldn't put it down, it was just so gripping.

THC: [to Sigourney Weaver] Year after year, many female actresses complain about the lack of complex roles. How do you manage to find challenging work?