Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep and Grace Gummer (Patrick McMullan)

Comparisons with her mother are inevitable. She’s got the high cheekbones, the porcelain skin, the innate grace and the straight, cornsilk hair, but Mamie Gummer, unlike her famous mother, Meryl Streep, is busy carving out a career in television, not film.

“I like how steady the work in television is,” says Gummer, 28. “Films, they’re hard to come by. They’re elusive. I’ve done a couple, independently financed. You do them and maybe a few people will see them. I’m trying to d a lot of things.”

This year alone, Gummer has continued with her recurring role as attorney Nancy Crozier on “The Good Wife,” has played an afflicted firefighter on “A Gifted Man,” has filmed a pilot, “First Cut,” for The CW, and this week adds a fourth credit to her expanding resume. As Maxine on “The Big C,” she plays a pregnant woman with a sunny disposition who isn’t what she seems.

Too bad for series star Laura Linney, who, as cancer survivor Cathy Jamison and her husband Paul (Oliver Platt). They want to adopt a baby and can’t do it legally because of her health. When Maxine Cooper and her contractor husband, David (Hamish Linklater), respond to Cathy’s blog post, prayers seem to be answered.

“There’s so much going on in the series. It’s jam-packed. It’s like Laura’s doing ballet on some kind of tightrope of comedy and tragedy,” says Gummer, who speaks to The Post from the trailer where her husband, actor Benjamin Walker, star of the June release “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” is filming an HBO movie, “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight.”

Gummer has long been friends with Linney, who was a guest at her wedding, and has worked with her twice — on the beloved HBO miniseries “John Adams” and on the New York stage in “Dangerous Liaisons.”

“I did the ‘The Big C’ because it was an opportunity to go to work with Laura and Hamish and Oliver [Platt]. Who wouldn’t want to spend a day that way?”

Gummer, born Mary Willa and the second eldest of Streep’s four children (younger sister Grace is also an actress), was a theater major at Northwestern. “I did more rehearsing than homework. I wasn’t quite prepared to take the plunge and go to a conservatory,” she says.

Her work in the theater attracted the discerning eye of CBS casting director Mark Saks, who cast Gummer as Nancy Crozier, a super-perky yet devious attorney on “The Good Wife.” He says he felt no pressure to cast her because of her lineage.

“Years ago, I was the casting director on ‘Defending Your Life,’ and I knew Meryl,” he says. “I knew about her before she hit the scene. I sort of chased her. When she came in for Nancy, it was between her and Lily Rabe. We had a long conversation about who would really find the character. Mamie’s really interesting when she plays things with curves in it.”

Gummer’s fall pilot, “First Cut,” is about a young doctor in Denver who finds that life in the hospital is no different than life in high school.

“It doesn’t pander to anyone,” she says with some relief. “It’s pretty smart, a solid alternative to the other girls’ shows. It gives [viewers] another option in case they don’t want to watch vampires. In case they want to do their homework and become surgeons.”

If the series gets picked up, Gummer will film in Vancouver, making a two-actor marriage a frequent-flier proposition. “Yeah, we’ll just go back and forth, back and forth.” She and Walker, whom she met while they were both performing in “Dangerous Liaisons,” live in Park Slope and Gummer says, “We’re doing all right. Maintaining a solid middle.”

Asked if it’s a burden to be the daughter of Meryl Streep, Gummer quickly replies, “No. It’s a lot of things. Well, it’s not a burden. It’s not a nuisance. It’s hard to even put a label on it. Cause it’s my reality. I have nothing else to compare it to.”

And Mom comes in handy when Gummer needs advice on which project to choose. “She’ll read scripts when I have to make a decision between two of them,” Gummer says. “She’ll tell you what’s what.”

THE BIG C

Today, 9:30 p.m., Showtime