'The Interview': Maggie Gyllenhaal Thinks Hollywood Likes Women to Direct ‘Little Movies’

From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. Maggie Gyllenhaal has always had this kind of fascination with the darker side of sex and love. Her breakout role as a young actor came with her award winning performance in the 2002 film Secretary, where she's a troubled woman who embarks on a sadomasochistic relationship with her boss. Boss. In Crazy Heart, she played a young mother who falls in love with an older alcoholic country singer. That role earned her an Oscar nomination. And in the series The Deuce, she starred as a sex worker who becomes a director of pornographic films. That last role made her want to be a director in real life too. And so in 2021, she won acclaim with her feature directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, about the taboo feelings some women feel over motherhood. For me, the through line in all her work is a desire to tell the stories of women who live outside conventional boundaries. Enter her newest film, The Bride, an imaginative retelling of the story of the bride of Frankenstein, starring Jessie Buckley, which Gyllenhaal both wrote and directed. The film is part love story, part crime caper with some surreal musical numbers thrown in. But Gyllenhaal's signature themes of sexual violence, female power, and transgression undergird it all. Here's my conversation with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you coming to the interview. It it really is my pleasure. You know, it's interesting to me because I interviewed you in 2019 for The Deuce. And in that interview, you said to me, playing that role where she your character becomes a director of pornography, but a director nonetheless. It's like a real journey. You said that that had made you realize that you would also be a director. And I was wondering, now sitting here with this big budget movie, you know, where you're at in that kind of evolution. I mean, I feel like I'm deeply, like, in process. That's how I feel. You know? I feel like like I knew I was going on a major journey starting the bride, and I was scared. I was actually terrified. And, to be honest, I remember I mean, I don't know. It's it's interesting that I'm sharing this. But, like, I remember being at Venice with Peter -Peter Sarsgaard, your husband. -My husband who had a movie there, and feeling so scared about the prospect of directing The Bride. And we went to a lovely restaurant that we booked. We were so excited for it. We knew it. And I remember feeling so anxious and getting up and going to the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, oh, I don't have to direct this. I can let someone else direct it. I've written it. I've cast it. I've conceived of it. Oh, I don't have to do this. And I came back to the table …