Maggie Gyllenhaal Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Donnie Darko' to 'The Dark Knight'

I think that the best performances,

the ones I'm most proud of,

are the ones where in order to play them,

I have to learn something about myself or grow in some way,

and so the process of watching the performance

is also the process of watching somebody change.

[bright music]

Hi, my name is Maggie Gyllenhaal,

and this is the timeline of my career.

[chuckles] Mr. Scott, keeper of my destiny.

And where were we last Tuesday's school council meeting?

I had this history test, I had--

And weren't we talking last time

about how leadership brings responsibility?

I know that Waterland and actually,

A Dangerous Woman also, are my first IMDB credits,

which I mean, it's true, I'm in those movies,

but my dad directed Waterland,

and my parents made A Dangerous Woman together.

I have like one line in both of those movies,

which was just an excuse, really, to go and visit my dad.

It was funny, actually, I was 14.

I felt like an actress, so it felt kind of weird

to be doing this line in my dad's movie,

although really nice to hang out with Ethan Hawke,

who, this is, I mean, '90s,

and Ethan Hawke was... [chuckles]

There was nobody cooler and sexier

to me at the time, and he hung out with me all day!

Donnie, you're such a dick!

[laughs] Whoa, Elizabeth, a little hostile, there!

I had graduated from college.

I had gone to Berkeley to do a play.

It was one of the first real gigs I got.

I had done teeny parts in a couple of independent movies,

and then I moved to L.A. to try to get some work,

and I was doing a lot of auditioning

and my brother was doing Donnie Darko

and I went and auditioned for it.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to go play a little part

in the movie that my brother was starring in.

But I did it, it was really cool.

To play brother and sister came really easily.

There were a lot of feelings that come along with that,

and they're all in the movie,

and Jake's so great in that movie.

It's one of my favorite movies of his, I think,

so it was nice to be a part of it and support him.

Are you listening?

You will never, ever,

cut yourself again.

I didn't really have the space

or the knowledge, the craft,

to express the things that were really important

and going on in my mind, until Secretary.

And when I read Secretary, I thought,

I don't know why, but I have to do this movie.

I went in and auditioned for Steve Shainberg, the director,

and we just really understood each other.

And it was so clear in the room.

And then I just heard, Well, they're gonna offer it

to a bunch of movie stars first,

and we'll see what happens. [laughs]

So we just hung out, and I just waited

and waited and checked in all the time,

and I knew I could do something

that was like, me, with it.

And finally it came to me.

There's a scene, the first scene

where Mr. Grey spanks Lee,

and it was really complicated politically,

really interesting, really strange, tons of feelings,

hard to keep track of all of that,

but what would happen was, he sort of would fall over me,

and every time, he would put his hand

next to mine on the desk, and I would take my pinkie

and cover his pinkie with it.

It would happen every time, I would do that,

and it occurred to me at the time,

I was like, Oh, well, that's consent!

And I remember wanting to be sure

that that was in the movie, 'cause otherwise,

I mean, you have to know that she wants it.

So I didn't know who to tell, so I told James Spader,

who told Steve Shainberg, the director, who shot it.

And it's in the movie, and I'm very proud of that.

[people clapping] He's making his move.

I knew he'd go for her!

She's too old for him.

She's too smart for him.

After Secretary, everything changed.

Yeah, I'd never been offered

or had any access to bigger movies.

But the bigness of that movie and that set,

and Julia Roberts, was so fun! [laughs]

I mean, I was in New York, I probably 22,

shooting this movie, it's the fall.

I loved Julia Roberts,

and she just gave me tons of great advice.

She bought me body scrub. [laughs]

And she told me also about giving speeches.

She was like, Don't write every word down.

Get the idea, think through what it is you wanna say,

and then get up there and be there, which I do.

[gentle piano music]

I've got 2 1/2 years clean.

I got clean in prison, and I've been out for four days,

and I feel like using so bad.

Actually, Sherrybaby, I probably did

more research than anything.

I mean, that was a world I didn't know all that much about.

Yeah, I went to women's prisons,

I went to a lot of halfway houses.

I spent a long time researching that.

And in a way, that was my rehearsal.

I found it was more helpful

to just go hang out in these places,

and see what everybody was wearing,

and how they were talking,

and meet people and find compassion,

for people who were living really differently than me.

And it was the first time in my life

that I'd come across a situation

where I didn't fundamentally agree

with the director I was working with, who was a brilliant,

bright, exciting, inspiring woman.

It took us about a week to get on the same page,

and we only had five weeks to shoot it.

And I ended up actually using the conflict

with my wonderful, lovely, very pregnant director,

to fuel, basically, Sherry's conflict with the world.

And she was wise enough, and you know,

she was twice my age at the time,

to know how helpful that was to me.

[bright music]

Well, you look nervous, is it the scars?

You wanna know how I got 'em?

C'mere. I had just had a baby

when I heard about The Dark Knight.

I think Ramona, at the time, was six weeks old,

and you're almost on another planet, at least I was.

I heard Chris Nolan wants to meet me,

and I just was like, [laughs] Okay, awesome!

You know, I don't know!

I went and met him, and I was all milky

and feeling very honest, you just have a baby,

things, especially just afterward,

it was like priorities are all different.

We had a great conversation, and he basically said,

I'd love for you to do this.

Your character is going to die, so it's just this.

And he gave me the script to read,

and I had a day to read it and someone

was sitting outside my house in a car

waiting for me to give it back to them.

Everybody in my world, like my agents, my manager,

everybody was like, So, you're doing this movie.

[laughs] I was like, Okay, yeah, I think I should.

Yes, I will, I'm very, yes! [laughs]

I was afraid, though, on that scale.

I'll be honest, you know?

I wasn't afraid in Secretary, to say what I thought,

I wasn't afraid in Sherrybaby.

I was a little afraid on The Dark Knight,

to really express all of my ideas.

It was big, and I was young.

Well, that was the first time I was ever

in anything on that scale.

Trying to find space for myself inside it,

it was interesting.

On The Dark Knight, everyone was an expert.

Christian Bale and Heath, and Aaron Eckhart,

and I had a little tiny baby,

so it was kind of an interesting combination

of something very, very tiny, very, very vulnerable

and small in my life, taking a lot of my attention,

and then something so massive and so muscular

and robust and big,

and both in my mind at once.

[gentle music]

Tape recorder okay?

Go ahead, that's fine.

You always dress for dinner?

So Crazy Heart, I knew that we had to create

real love, otherwise that movie doesn't work,

because that movie is a tragic love story.

You have to be absolutely heartbroken

that they can't be together, and yet,

of course they can't be together.

But in order to create that, in terms of story,

they just have to love each other so much, against all odds.

I was really shy to talk to Jeff Bridges.

He kept calling me and calling me, and I was,

yeah, on the press tour for The Dark Knight.

I really wanted to talk to him, but yeah, I was shy!

And finally, I called him back.

He's so nice, we chat for a minute, it's a little awkward,

and then I didn't meet him until I was actually in Santa Fe,

and he just comes walking across this parking lot,

and just sort of grabs me and embraces me.

And I was like, oh, he thinks the same thing I think.

Our characters, we have to create love.

You just gotta knocked down every boundary,

like let's go, we have no time!

We made that movie in 23 days, also,

the director and Jeff and me and the DP,

we were all high,

off of how much fun we were having.

I did a lot of thinking about going to the Academy Awards.

I thought, I want to have fun.

I know I won't win, I have no investment in winning.

I wouldn't know what to do, you know, at the time,

I just felt like this is just enough, you know? [laughs]

And I was like, how can I be there,

enjoy it, not let it just slip by,

because it is something I watched on TV as a kid

and dreamed about, and I did, I was able to be there.

It was my husband's birthday, and we went,

and like I said, we were all, all of us on that movie

were in love, so to be there together,

Jeff won, I loved my dress.

A couple friends met me afterward and I had a great time.

I danced with Madonna at the after-party.

[laughs] It was great!

Do you know there are moments in a diplomat's career,

Daniel, when the only thing to do

is just to tell it straight.

We have absolutely no knowledge

of the group operating-- Hmm, is it also your policy

to allow military veterans into universities

at the expense of Israeli Arabs?

We have absolutely no-- Would you fucking shut up?

TV wasn't quite what it is now, and I was like,

Mm, I don't know if I wanna go [laughs] to TV,

and I open up the script and start reading it,

and my manager, who's also just a dear friend of mine,

and a really smart woman who I really trust,

she was reading it at the same time,

and we both had very little babies.

So we were dealing with kids, and reading when we could,

and we were texting each other, like, This is really good!

Wait, did you read episode three?

Shit, you know, Whoa, and then I finished it

and I was like, I can't do this.

I can't do this, it takes place in Gaza,

and London, and I have a 14-month-old

and a seven-year-old, and I can't do it!

And Courtney, my manager, I mean,

she tells me now in retrospect, she was like,

I was not gonna let you not do this.

So anyway, I said yes, and I took my whole family

to London and then to Morocco,

and I feel like that project for me

was a real turning point.

I feel like that was real, grown-up work.

And I actually don't think I've ever

been the same since then.

I think it really changed something in me.

I found it really hard to let go of it at the end.

I really learned so much from that part.

[upbeat music]

Has your friend left? [people chattering]

Yeah, yeah, he was nice.

Have a drink with me, Candy.

I've never worked on anything this long,

but to see the way everyone, all the actors,

the writers, even our DP,

who shot the last two seasons with us,

everyone's work has deepened.

I mean, the third season is by far the best season.

There's no question about it, I've seen all eight episodes,

I was there [chuckles] making it,

I think it's kind of leagues beyond the first two.

I don't know why, except that of course

we know each other so well, we trust each other.

I'm more proud right now of my work

in the third season of The Deuce

than in anything I've done before.

It's just pushed me to the edge

of what I'm able to do, I think.

Two falls ago, when people were,

actresses were sort of getting together at people's houses,

this is before Me Too and Time's Up,

it was sort of like the beginning

of all that, and just talking.

Someone, I think it was Natalie Portman, maybe,

said, Every time there's a fight scene,

if someone even grabs your arm,

there's a stunt coordinator there to make sure you're okay.

Why isn't there somebody like that for sex scenes?

So season two, we had an intimacy coordinator.

Basically, her job was to call the actors beforehand,

talk to them about what they were gonna be doing,

introduce herself, let them know

that she was there to advocate for them.

And so I think we were the first.

I think we started it, as far as I know.

Basically what happens on every set,

is you sign a nudity waiver, which means you agree

to show certain parts of your body.

The reason why they do that is so that

they then don't have actors coming to set,

when so much money is being spent each day,

saying, Oh, actually, I've changed my mind,

and then all of a sudden, the scene can't be shot.

But on our set, if you've signed a nudity waiver,

and then you change your mind, you've changed your mind.

It's like actual consent.

If you go out to dinner with someone and you think,

Yeah, I wanna go to bed with him,

and then you go back to his apartment and you're like,

Actually, no, well then, actually, no! [chuckles]

And it's the same on our set.

[suspenseful music]

Hey, Jimmy! [children chattering]

Hi. Hi.

Turn that, push it to the left.

[gate clunks]

The Kindergarten Teacher, I went to a Christmas party,

like a work party, and a couple people came up to me

and said, Oh, have you read 'The Kindergarten Teacher'?

It's a great script, and it's gonna come to you.

And it's rare to hear that, it's rare to hear,

There's a great script, keep your eye out,

from more than one person.

And so I was like, Oh, cool, what's this?

And I waited for it, I didn't get it,

I waited, I started to ask about it.

Finally, I got it, I read it in one sitting,

and I was like, I want this movie,

and I just didn't hear back from anybody for a couple days,

and I was like, I want this movie! [giggles]

And finally, yeah, they called me back

and we decided to work on it together,

and it was really hard to put together.

It doesn't fit into a clear genre.

It doesn't have anything that's, I think,

initially commercial about it,

so to get the money for it was difficult

and it took us a long time.

Also, it was all women.

Our director and our producer both got pregnant

in this time that we were in pre-production,

trying to put the movie together,

and it pushed us back by a year,

and then we shot it in 22 days, for not enough money.

I mean, I love it, I'm so proud of it,

and I think it says really interesting things

about a feminine experience,

and I think it's rare to see that.

[lively music]

I'm gonna direct an adaptation

of Elena Ferrante's book The Lost Daughter,

which I adapted, and we're gonna shoot next summer.

I'm in the process now of putting the movie together.

It really stars three women,

and two of them I found already,

so right now I'm really grateful for that time,

and I find the space has been really interesting.

I feel really curious about what it's gonna feel like

to actually be there shooting it.

But even this process now,

of the beginnings of pre-production

have [chuckles] just been really amazing.

I've always been interested in storytelling.

I feel like my acting has always included storytelling,

but I think I didn't really feel entitled

to explore storytelling from a directorial point of view.

When I actually gave myself the space

to think about what I really wanted, I thought,

no, actually, I think I would like to direct!

I also loved doing the book adaptation, and writing.

I don't know where I'm gonna be 10 years from now!

Yeah, I have no idea.