The kitchen floor is an explosion of toys: a half-finished train set here, a plastic cash register there, cars, bears and building blocks. Shoved into one corner lies an unzipped Louis Vuitton bag.

The proprietress of this glorious mess sits cross-legged at a small table doodling, sketching what seems to be an old man with a cane on a clean sheet of paper.

She likes doing something with her hands while she's being interviewed, she says. And she is interviewed often because, besides being a freshly minted mother, Aňa Geislerová also happens to be the most famous Czech actress working today, star of an Oscar-nominated film (Želary) and multiple winner of the Czech Lion award.

"Awards are nice," she says. "Sometimes I can't help but think how fantastic it will all look in my obituary."

Geislerová has always had a blissfully bleak streak. "I was a typical dark, melodramatic teenager," she says. Acting has provided her with the perfect outlet for this in films like 1991's Requiem pro panenku (Requiem for a Maiden), 2003's Želary and, more recently, last year's Štěstí (Something Like Happiness), and Šílení (Lunacy).

Geislerová's latest film, the hit Kráska v nesnázích (Beauty in Trouble), directed by Jan Hřebejk and released last month, is a departure from Geislerová's usual moody dramas.

In Beauty, Geislerová plays a young mother who finds herself torn between two men: a good-for-nothing criminal husband whom she loves and a wealthy Czech émigré who has money and can offer her a new life, but is twice her age. Geislerová somehow manages to play the role with enough shades of ambiguity that a character who otherwise could have seemed calculating comes across as disarmingly ingenuous, and the viewer can't help but empathize.

The film has already received a number of awards, including a special Jury Prize at this year's Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

A natural observer

At 30, Geislerová, who started acting at 14, has more films to her credit than many actors twice her age. That may be why she recently decided for the first time in her life to act in a television series. In Letiště (Airport) Geislerová plays a high-end prostitute, a role she says she has come to relish. But she also enjoys the slower work pace acting on the small screen.

"In some ways, it's the perfect job," she says. "We shoot for eight days a month and the rest of the time I get to be with Bruno."

Bruno is Geislerová's 2-year-old son and the architect of the mess on the kitchen floor of her Prague 5 row house. She has just packed him off to go play at a nearby playground with her sister-in-law, and, with the child gone, the room suddenly seems much emptier.

Geislerová, who married theater director Zdeněk Janáček last year, refers to her son throughout the interview, even when discussing her acting method.

"I'm an observer," she says. "And I can see Bruno doing exactly the same thing. If he approaches a group of kids at the park, he hangs back for a while checking out the situation."

Hřebejk, who directed Geislerová in Beauty as well as in the yet-to-be-released Medvídek (Little Bear), says, "She always puts all of herself into the role, and she's able to create a very wide range of characters."

Geislerová insists that she's not an actress "in the true sense."

"I don't think I ever really wanted to be an actress," she says. "Acting just ended up being the most natural way for me to deal with all my various complexes. It's like a form of self-therapy."

From hitchhiker Aňa in Jan Svěrák's 1994 film Jízda (The Ride), to Beáta in 1997's Výchova dívek v Čechách (Raising Girls in Bohemia), to Charlota in Šílení, Geislerová's roles often depict coy, neurotic females in sexually charged situations — complete with scenes that would not avoid an R-rating in North American movie theaters.

"It's just part of the script," she says. "I don't stress over it. Not the way I would have at 14."

Petite and pale, with a head of red hair, delicate features and a little-girl voice, Geislerová also surely stars in the fantasies of many men.

She says acting has allowed her to remain playful.

"I think it helps me keep a certain level of naiveté. I still believe that people are basically good," she says. "But I live in this sort of bubble. And every day you are forced to discover just how stupid and aggressive some people can be."

She shakes her head in incredulity. "Just the other day, some man leaned out of his car and spat on me. I felt sorry for the woman he was with."

Gray humor

When Geislerová was 15, she packed up her bags and moved to Milan for a few months to become a model.

"I still can't believe my mom actually let me," she says. "Me and some of the other girls, we would walk around at night, visiting the shadiest parts of the city, buying weed from the Arab dealers at the train station. I was this little kid. I had no idea what I was doing."

Somehow, she made it back to Prague all in one piece, and her acting career began to flourish soon after.

Following her first film in 1990, Ondřej Trojan's Pějme píseň dohola (Let's All Sing Around), Geislerová went on to star in films made by the new generation of filmmakers that emerged following the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Besides Hřebejk and Trojan, Geislerová also worked with the likes of Filip Renč, Bohdan Sláma, Saša Gedeon and Jan Svěrák.

Although it may seem as though her career is linked with Czech film, Geislerová, who speaks English, says that if given the chance to star in a Hollywood film she wouldn't think twice about taking it.

"It would be a lot of fun to act in an American-style comedy," she says. "But someone would first have to teach me how to be funny."

Czechs do comedy differently, Geislerová says. "It's a sort of gray humor, very ironic and all about shooting someone or something down."

Her dream collaboration, she says, would be with filmmaker David Lynch. "His films are so dark, and he clearly loves women. The men in his films are just these shadows."

For now, though, Geislerová seems content to enjoy being part of the Czech film scene.

"The scale of everything is much smaller here," she says.

This even extends to the level of celebrity. You can easily make the case that she is one of the most recognizable actors in the country, yet Geislerová can go to the supermarket or a downtown café without being followed by hordes of fans.

She often putters around in her backyard and her neighbors don't gawk.

"I'm kind of afraid, though, of the effect of appearing on TV regularly now that I'm playing in Letiště," she says. "You know how fans sometimes approach actors who play doctors on soap operas and tell them about all their health problems? Well, in Letiště, I play a prostitute."

'Typical middle child'

Born in Prague to a Japan-scholar father and artist mother, Geislerová says she had a "fantastic childhood."

"I was a typical middle child, always trying to get extra attention," she says. "If you see photos of me from when I was little, you can tell that I'm always posing, always playing for the camera."

She hasn't outgrown that, says Hřebejk. "The camera loves her. I first saw Aňa when she was 14 and you could already tell there was something there. She's such a strong personality."

That strong personality may have been partly the reason behind Geislerová's decision to drop out of the Acting Academy in Prague and strike out on her own. "I've always had a problem with working in teams and adhering to a regimented schedule," she says.

It's nearing noon and Geislerová is clearly itching to be with Bruno again. She suggests a walk over to the park where Bruno's playing with his aunt.

"It's got this funny little blue house. Bruno loves it."

None of the three other mothers at the park pays any attention when Geislerová saunters in through the gate. Bruno is in his blue house, playing shopkeeper. His mother joins him and buys a couple of pebbles for a fair price.

"I'm basically a stay-at-home mom now," she says. "And I like it that way. I want a big, huge family, like a gang, a clan."

Motherhood is clearly a role Geislerová has taken to.

"It's like being colorblind all your life and then suddenly seeing in color," she says. "But of course, that sounds stupid, especially once it's written down. It's just something you can't describe."