Happy days are here for Katie Holmes, who positively beams during the Los Angeles premiere of Mad Money, her new comedy with Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah. (Matt Sayles/AP)

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Actress Katie Holmes, the wife of Tom Cruise and mother of their 20-month-old daughter, Suri, says paparazzi intrusion into the private lives of TomKat -- as the couple is known in the tabloids -- just comes with the territory.

"I married the biggest movie star ever -- it's fine," said the Toledo, Ohio-born Holmes, 29, this past weekend while promoting her new comedy, Mad Money (in theatres tomorrow).

Of the often-printed tabloid stories she said: "I'm aware of what's out there, of course. There's lots of paparazzi, lots of attention."

But when asked directly if she would read Andrew Morton's controversial and unauthorized Cruise biography, which came out earlier this week and includes claims that the movie star is the world's No. 2 Scientologist, she declined to comment.

"I'm here to talk about this movie," said Holmes, who often hesitates before speaking calmly and deliberately during the course of a 20-minute interview.

For the record, a lawyer for Cruise, a longtime Scientology devotee, has painted the book as "outrageous, sick stuff and filled with old lies."

Any ongoing TomKat controversy aside, Holmes' first post-marriage-and-motherhood film will be of interest to the masses.

Instead of reprising her role from 2005's Batman Begins in the anticipated summer blockbuster followup, The Dark Knight, she chose to do Mad Money instead for the opportunity to act opposite Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah and be directed by Callie Khouri, the screenwriter of Thelma And Louise.

"I thought it was a very funny script," said Holmes of the plot about three U.S. Federal Bank Reserve employees who decide to pull off a heist. "I liked the three main characters in the movie. I thought they were real women."

But were there any nerves given Keaton's well-established comedic abilities?

"You're damn right," said Holmes, stylishly dressed in a Oscar de la Renta ensemble of crisp white dress shirt, white and black checked pants and black high heels with her brown hair cut into a short bob. "I was appropriately nervous but it was very exciting and she's so generous and such a pro. I just wanted to make an easy day for everyone."

The two actresses, who were interviewed side by side, appeared to be members of a mutual admiration society.

Keaton described Holmes as a compelling beauty, "because I could just look at her all the time. You can just get lost in a face sometimes and I did get lost in her face and that was fun for me. But besides that there's this quiet intelligence and there's this quiet curiosity."

Holmes' Mad Money character is an iPod-addicted free spirit who lives in a trailer with her meat-packer husband (newcomer Adam Rothenberg).

In other words, it couldn't be farther from Holmes' reality since she got married to Cruise in a lavish ceremony in an Italian castle in November 2006 after he proposed at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Holmes, who got her first big break on TV's Dawson Creek (1998-2003) before notable roles in such diverse films as Wonder Boys and Thank You For Smoking, said marriage and motherhood hasn't dampened her desire for a successful career.

"I feel the same inspiration that I've always felt to work and do good work and becoming a mom really awakens you to a lot of things. And one of them is, there's that constant -- is this good for everybody, and what is this saying to her (Suri)?" Holmes said. "And I think that's a normal thing to feel. So it's even more that motivation to do a good job and to keep working."

In short, Katie's simply maturing

Much has been made about Katie Holmes' recent style transformation, particularly her decision to cut off her long locks -- which she nonetheless sports in an extremely curly version in her new movie, Mad Money.

But the dark-haired beauty doesn't understand the fuss.

"I think we're all evolving," she said carefully of her new look.

"It was very easy," she added of cutting her hair. "It's much easier (to manage)."

And don't be fooled.

Holmes' more-mature look, along with mommyhood via 20-month-old daughter Suri, doesn't mean she has given up such adrenaline-boosting pleasures as riding around on motorcycles with husband Tom Cruise.

"He has quite a bike collection," she said. "It scares me to death and I love it. I love that I don't have to drive."

Surprisingly, Holmes doesn't see juggling family life with a career as a struggle.

"No, I think it's exciting, I love it," she said, adding she'd like to have more children -- just not immediately.

Still, she will admit she doesn't know how her mother did it with such a big brood.

"I really appreciate my mom," she said. "I mean, my mom's the mother of five. She said she got used to not sleeping for 30 years.

"She took us all everywhere. She cooked. She cleaned. We were at the gymnasium, basketball, every night.

"And God love her. And I don't know when she slept, how she slept, how we ate."

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