Ginnifer Goodwin

MaxMara 'Face of the Future' Award

By PETER DEBRUGE

Between her role as the youngest wife on HBO's "Big Love" and her co-starring status opposite Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston in upcoming "He's Just not That Into You," Ginnifer Goodwin is feeling pretty good about her career. But if the juicy parts dried up tomorrow, she wouldn't think twice about leaving it all behind.

"I am a terrible snob," the 30-year-old actress says. "Because I come from theater, I would rather go back to New York and do plays in a church basement than act in a film in which I don't believe."

Goodwin first took to the stage doing local Equity theater when she was 5 years old, but insists, "I wasn't a child actor because my parents wouldn't allow me to miss school."

Instead, they insisted that their daughter get a college degree, so Goodwin spent five years studying acting in Boston and London. And when it came time to pursue screen roles, she stuck to her guns. "Let's be honest, I'm not anorexic, and I'm not six feet tall -- I would not cast me as eye candy," says Goodwin, who made her film debut in "Mona Lisa Smile" and later played Johnny Cash's first wife in "Walk the Line."

"Living in L.A., there was a time when I couldn't find anything, so I went and mucked stalls in a barn. I picked horses' hooves," she says. "I have seriously chosen to go broke and not work for a year at a time, just having faith that those roles would come."