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The Library
New York Daily News - She Who Dares
Interviewed by Nancy Mills
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/326355p-2...
Trying to find your place in the movies can be difficult when your competition is Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Garner and every other actress between 25 and 35. It's especially difficult for Maggie Gyllenhaal, 27, because she doesn't follow the rules.
In "Happy Endings," opening Friday, Gyllenhaal gives a stunning performance as Jude, a temporarily homeless wanna-be singer who seduces her band's possibly gay drummer (Jason Ritter) and then his rich widower dad (Tom Arnold). It's a character "many people have called awful," Gyllenhaal says. "I hear people describing Jude as a manipulative money-grubber. But I loved her. She's one of my favorite people I've ever played. I think she's doing everything she can to survive. Her major problem is she lies.
"I had to ask myself, 'How would I, Maggie, behave if I found myself in these circumstances?' I felt, 'You guys should share. You have way more than you should.'
"I also think sex is [Jude's] currency, and she wants to share her sex. She tells the boy, 'I'm going to show you something. You've never slept with a woman. You're struggling over your sexuality. Let's try it.' She makes them honest. She makes them a family."
Director Don Roos cast Gyllenhaal after both Paltrow and Garner dropped out.
"I didn't know Maggie, but I admired her work in 'Secretary,'" Roos says. "She brings a lot of sexiness to any role. And she's very bold. She doesn't need to be liked.
"Whenever we'd have an argument, Maggie would say, 'Let me show you the way I think,'" he adds. "Every single time she was exactly right. She didn't want to do what I, the writer, thought. She made her character much better. Maggie's only problem is that Hollywood rarely has good use for an intelligent actress. Finding roles that will interest her will be her biggest challenge."
In 2002, Gyllenhaal made a splash in the title role of Steve Shainberg's provocative "Secretary," the story of an S&M relationship between a boss (James Spader) and his submissive assistant, Lee.
"I was fortunate that every single actress you could think of was afraid to play the part," Shainberg says, "so I was able to cast someone new. Maggie is more willing than a lot of people to stretch her boundaries - she's a risk-taker who has an extremely unusual point of view and a very sophisticated sense of what's interesting. Her combination of intelligence and tenderness is rare."
"What drew me to 'Secretary' is that I knew I needed to learn something," Gyllenhaal says. "I was young and naive. I was 22 [when cast], and it really shook things up for me. There was a lesson Lee learned I needed to learn - that however you love, try to follow your own idea of what love and sex and living is supposed to be like or it will really kill you.
"For Lee, sex is the door that opens her up to other parts of herself. James Spader's character knocks on that door. Through this sexual engagement, she finds her brain, her desire and her anxiety."
One of Gyllenhaal's upcoming films, "The Great New Wonderful," tells stories of various New Yorkers dealing with the aftermath of Sept 11. When the film had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, Gyllenhaal told a reporter she thought America had somehow been responsible for the attacks.
She now says the ensuing backlash against her taught her "that neither the red carpet nor an interview about a movie is the right place to talk about my politics. I realize I have to be careful, because it's very easy to misunderstand a complicated thought in a complicated world.
"I was so surprised by the way it was misunderstood, and the disdain that came back at me was a real shock. I regret what I said, but I think my intentions were good."
Since graduating as an English major from Columbia University in 1999, Gyllenhaal has made 17 films. They've mostly been low-budget independents, though she played one of Julia Roberts' students - the sexy one - in "Mona Lisa Smile." She is now working on the black comedy "Stranger Than Fiction," with Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah.
FACING FEARS
"Maybe I'm braver with my roles than I am with my life," says Gyllenhaal, who dates actor Peter Sarsgaard. "But the older and more confident I get, the more I feel I can risk looking at things that scare me in both."
The daughter of screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and sister of 24-year-old rising star Jake, she grew up in Hollywood, but didn't do any serious acting until her last semester of college. "Jake and I used to do little plays, but I think I was deeply daydreamy when I was a kid," she says. "I was very intense."
She still is when she works. "It's important to me to collaborate," she says. "The best directors know that good work happens when you're free. I don't want to work with someone who says, 'I've decided you have to walk from here to that table and be a little angrier.'"
Meanwhile, she's not one of those actresses who claims to be resistant to fame.
"There are things about celebrity that are strangely appealing," Gyllenhaal says. "I used to think, 'I don't care if anyone sees my work because I'm learning something.' Now I've changed my mind. It's important for people to see it. It will give me power to ultimately have an effect."
Originally published on July 10, 2005
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