Chik - September 2003

Maggie - Not just Jake's sister (or Kirsten's bestie)

When Maggie Gyllenhaal was three, she tried to kill her brother Jake because he wouldn't follow her orders to lip sync to Cyndi Lauper songs. Thankfully, he survived to join her as one of Hollywood's "Most Wanted" hot new crew. Introducing the actress you'll soon be seeing a whole lot more of.

You might not have seen Maggie Gyllenhaal in many movies. It's not because she hasn't been working - in fact, she's been acting almost non-stop for the last 18 months. It's because so far, Maggie has played the girl you don't notice - the best friend in 40 Days and 40 Nights (who tried to seduce Josh Hartnett, but hey, who wouldn't?), the sister in Donnie Darko (alongside real-life brother Jake), and the girlfriend in the Nicholas Cage movie Adaptation. Her most recent role was in Secretary, a raunchy, disturbing film about sexual fetishes (her performance landed her a Golden Globe nomination). It seems like the only similarity between the roles is that Maggie has like each of them for their complete originality. "I get excited by anything that makes me feel like I'm taking a risk," says the 24-year-old. "I find myself more and more interested only in roles that challenge people to question where they are in life." She shrugs. "I just want to support these films and be a part of them in any way because they are so provocative and interesting. That isn't to say if something interesting came along with a big budget I wouldn't do it, but a lot of the stuff I read isn't particularly interesting. Someone asked me why I didn't do teen movies or action movies, but I'm not interested in them, and they're not interested in me, either!"

Despite that, Maggie next appears in her first really big budget film Mona Lisa Smile, alongside Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, and best-bud Kirsten Dunst, which will hit our shores in January. "I play a bad ass sexy girl," she reveals. While making the movie, Maggie introduced Kirsten to her brother and the two have been dating ever since.

Movie stars don't excite Maggie, in fact the industry as a whole doesn't faze her. Her entire family is involved in showbiz in some way - her dad Stephen is a director (currently doing Channel Ten's TV show The Sheild), her Mum Naomi is a screenwriter and of course, bro Jake is also an actor. She believes growing up in a showbiz environment has heloed her to deal with the ups and downs life as an actress can bring. It's probably also the reason why she hasn't been affected much by the enormous hyper surrounding her now - she's been called everything from "sizzling", "cool" to the new "it" girl, but remains completely down-to-earth. "I've watched my parents go up and down in Hollywood," she says simply. "This is the craziest high I've been on, but I know how things vacilate."

She's also quick to see how things really are when you're playing the whole "fame game" thing. "You're invited to tons of parties, and you'll wear these shoes and that dress and it can be enticing, but I think it also sucks you dry." She pauses before adding; "If you do a little, sure, it's fun, but too much and you'll start to lose your footing.

Maggie has made a conscious effort not to lose her footing and not to trade off the family name. She admits to being a bit "alternative" while at high school, which she says was because she didn't fit in to the whole "West Coast" cheerleader formula. "There was this rich L.A. thing going on, and I did rebel against that," she says. "[But] I like to fantasise about being more rebelious than I probably actually was.

As her star began to rise, Maggie took time to attend Columbia University, where she graduated with a BA in English, waiting on tables to support herself while studying. She has also just finished writing her first screenplay, simply because she feels the best way to land a good role is to write it yourself. She won't reveal much about the script, but we have to wonder whether it will be another depressing role, which she and Jake have become famous for. Both describe themselves as "very happy" and "completely normal", so why do they keep getting cast as misfits? "I think both of us have sad eyes," she says. "I worked with a director one time who wanted me to wear magnets or something that go on your face and pull your eyes up to make them look more happy. I wouldn't do it."

It's not the first time she hasn't listened to well-intentioned "advice". Maggie remembers once being told by a director that she wasn't sexy enough to land roles in Hollywood. "[And] an agent [once] told me if I really wanted to get parts, I had to wear more makeup and shave under my arms." She grins, her face makeup free.

She admits that the person she turns to most for advice is Jake, despite their well-known brawls. "There has always been and I hope always will be, a tremendous amount of competition between the two of us," admits Jake. "But she's my best friend." Maggie agrees. "I think we have been competitive in a way that's good and bad, but now I feel like we're on the same team. It's a great team to be on." The two have made one movie together (Donnie Darko), but they say they have no plans to work together anytime soon. "I feel like we've barely done it," says Maggie. "We did it for a couple of days on Donnie Darko but I think it would be really, really powerful when we get a chance to do it for real."

"I think [with Jake and I] sometimes, a couple of weeks go by and we don't talk at all," she continues. "But then as soon as we get to talk, it will be like immediately about the most important sort of complicated things that are happening." Maggie stops and thinks before adding; "The thing that we are always asked about is if we are competitive and stuff and of course we are competitive, we are brother and sister. And we fight sometimes, but [at the end of the day], we love each other."

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