Simon Pegg and Thandie Newton at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival © Henny Garfunkel / Retna Ltd.

But it shows you have comedic chops...
Yeah, I like it. I do. And I've just written a comedy as well which I'm trying to get money together for. I suppose I'm getting to a point in my life where the frustration of not finding material that is hugely fulfilling creatively has led me to create my own. And it's not just out of frustration — I'm just ready to do it now. Since having my children, I've become much more aware of my potential. And I'm so much more industrious when I've got spare time. So when [my children] are at school, I'll write my scripts. Nowadays I can fit so much into an hour, whereas before I'd just piss it away.

So did you get involved in the scriptwriting process for this film?
Very little. Mind you, we had an involved rehearsal for two weeks. And David [Schwimmer] was very keen to get my input. I couldn't just read the script, put it down and come every day having learned my lines — but there's a part of me that has started doing that because I'm not always turned on by the material. I'm more preoccupied with my family and I'll just go to work and wing it. But this film revived my work ethic; it pushed me to become more engaged with what I'm doing. When I'm doing The Pursuit of Happyness, I'm engaged. But there are other projects, like Norbit, where I'm just freewheeling. I'm not researching, I'm not thinking about it. But with this, David basically gave me the keys to his kingdom, [saying]: "I want you to make this character what you want it to be." And so [I worked with] the idea of her being more independent and not needing these two guys in her life. Being a financially independent single mother, she doesn't need to have a man.

It's not like she's between a rock and a hard place.
No, she doesn't need either of them. David's a real champion of [eradicating] victim stereotypes. He doesn't want it — he wants women to be strong and articulate and independent. Otherwise, why bother making it, if it's just going to be just one-dimensional crap? He wanted this to be a character-driven comedy, and as a result, he needed our help to make [our characters] true and real.

It's amazing that he wasn't very precious about this project since it had been in gestation for so long and gotten rejected so many times and moved locations...
Not at all. He trusts us. He [told me] he trusts that I'm a really good actress. And he didn't know that I'd been getting bored and lazy about acting. He had expectations because of his respect for me. He had higher expectations [and that] helped me.