When Mike Leigh cast her as the lead in his film Happy Go Lucky, Sally Hawkins knew it was a good role - but she didn't realize how good.
Then she was nominated for an Oscar, won a Golden Globe and swept almost every critical and festival award she was eligible for.
"It was such an overwhelmingly huge thing," Hawkins, 34, gushes by telephone. "It will be a number of years before I realize that all those things really happened. I just know I'm incredibly proud to have been part of the film."
Still, while she relishes the new opportunities that it offered her, Hawkins can't see that much has changed since then - except for people's expectations of her.
"It didn't change my life in a dramatic way - except that I think people think I'm a multimillionaire now," she says. "I'm very far from that. And people think you leapfrog to superstardom. So, yes, more people are aware of me, which is something for an actor. But there are only so many really good scripts around at one time. I've been lucky to be presented with interesting and intelligent ones."
The latest is Nigel Cole's Made in Dagenham, which opens in limited release Nov. 19. Based on a true story, the film chronicles the strike by a group of female autoworkers at a British Ford plant in 1968. Initially upset that their work doing elaborate stitch work on seat covers was classified as unskilled - entitling Ford to pay them less - they went on strike and eventually brought about the equal-pay act in Parliament.
"My mother remembers it very well," Hawkins says. "These women weren't interested in being politicians. But God knows where we'd be without women like this. I'm glad to be representing one of them. I'm not representing one particular woman; my character is an amalgam of many who led the fight. But there were many who stepped up at the right time."
As part of her research, Hawkins met with three of the actual strikers to talk about their experience: "What I got was this intelligence and humor and modesty," she says. "I loved their humor. But they were very passionate about what they believed. And they didn't suffer fools gladly.
"I wanted to make sure I got that across. I wanted to be as truthful as I can. I had a duty to do the story justice, to do them justice."