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  • I think the best performances the ones I'm most proud of are the ones where, in order to play them, I have Thio 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.

  • Hi, my name is Maggie Gyllenhaal, and this is the timeline of my career.

  • Mr.

  • Scott Keeper, my destiny.

  • Where were we last Tuesday?

  • School council meeting.

  • I have this history.

  • I know that water land and actually a dangerous woman also are my first imdb credits, which I mean, it's true, I'm in those movies, but, um, my dad directed water land and my parents made a dangerous woman together.

  • I have, like, one line in both of those movies, which was just a excuse, really, To go and visit my dad.

  • It was funny, actually, Like I was 14.

  • I felt like an actress.

  • So feel kind of weird to be like doing this line of my dad's movie, although really nice to hang out with Ethan Hawke, who this'd mean like nineties and even Hawk was like there was nobody cooler and sexier to me.

  • And he, like Hung out with me all day.

  • Dani, you're such a dick.

  • Whoa, Elizabeth.

  • Real hostile there.

  • I had graduate from college.

  • Um, I had gone toe.

  • Berkeley to do a play was one of the first real gigs I got.

  • I had a done like, teeny parts in a couple of independent movies, and then I moved to L.

  • A like 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.

  • A lot of feelings that come along with that and they're all in the movie.

  • And Jake 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.

  • You're listening.

  • You will never, ever cut yourself.

  • I didn't really have the space or the knowledge the craft Thio to express the things that were really important going on in my mind until Secretary and when I read Secretary and I thought, I don't know why, but I have to do this movie.

  • I went in and auditioned for Steve Sheinberg, the director, and we just We really understood each other and it was so clear in the room.

  • And then I was like Then I just heard like, Well, they're gonna offer to a bunch of movie stars first, and we'll see what happens.

  • So we just hung out and, you know, I just waited and waited and checked in all the time, and I knew I could do something really that was like me with it and finally came to me.

  • There's a scene first scene where Mr Gray Spanx Lee and has 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 pinky and, like, cover his pinky 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 because otherwise I mean, you have to know that she's that she wants it, so I don't know who to tell.

  • So I told James Spader, who told Steve, Shane Berg, the director who shot it, and it's in the movie, and I'm very proud of that.

  • He's making his move.

  • I knew you'd go for her.

  • She's too old for him.

  • After Secretary, Everything changed.

  • You had never been offered or had any access to bigger movies, Yes, but the bigness of that movie and that's sad.

  • And Julia Roberts and was so fun like I was in New York was probably 22 shooting this movie.

  • It's the fall.

  • I loved Julia Roberts, and she was just gave me tons of great advice.

  • She bought me body Scrub, 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 want to say and then get up there and be there, which I do.

  • I've got 2/2 years clean, 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 me.

  • I went toe 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, you know, 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.

  • 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 twice my age time to know how helpful that was.

  • to me.

  • You look nervous.

  • Is it the scars?

  • You want to know how I got him?

  • I had just had a baby when I heard about the dark night.

  • Um, I I think Ramona at the time was like, 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, Okay, awesome.

  • I don't know.

  • I went met him.

  • I was like, well, milky and feeling very honest, you know, it's just, like, have a baby.

  • Things, especially just afterward, you know, is the priority.

  • They're all different.

  • We had a great conversation, and he basically said, I don't need to do this.

  • Your character is going to die.

  • So it's just This gave me the script to read, and I had, you know, a day to read it, and someone was sitting outside my house and a car waiting for me to give it back to them.

  • Everybody in my world, my agent, my manager, you know of everybody was like, So you're doing this movie, E.

  • I think I should Yes, I will.

  • I'm very yes.

  • You know, I was I was afraid, though, on that scale I have to be.

  • I'll be honest.

  • You know, I I wasn't afraid and secretary to say what I thought I wasn't afraid.

  • And Sherry baby was a little afraid on the dark night, um, 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 was interesting.

  • On the dark night, everyone was an expert.

  • Christian Bale and Heath, Aaron Eckhart and 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 kind of muscular and robust and big, and, um, kind of both in my mind at once.

  • All right.

  • Tape recorder.

  • Okay, go ahead.

  • You always dress for dinner.

  • So crazy heart.

  • I knew that we had to create riel 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.

  • Like 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 I was.

  • I was shy and finally I called him back.

  • He's so nice chat for a minute.

  • It's like 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, like, grabs me and embraces me.

  • And I was like, Oh, he thinks the same thing I think our characters have which create love.

  • He just kind of knocked down every boundary like Let's go, we have no time.

  • We made that movie in 23 days.

  • Also, director Jeff Me and the DP and we were all like, high off of how much fun we're having.

  • It 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?

  • And I was like, How can I be there?

  • Enjoy it, Like 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 was my husband's birthday and we went and, you know, like I said, we were all All of us on that movie were in love, so like 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 E.

  • That's great.

  • 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.

  • They also your policy to allow military veterans into universities at the expense of Israeli era.

  • We have absolutely no TV wasn't quite what it is now, and I was like, No, I wanna go to TV and I opened up the script and start reading it.

  • And my manager, who's also just a dear friend of mine and really smart woman who I who I really trust.

  • She was reading it at the same time, and we both had very little babies.

  • So we were, like dealing with kids and reading when we could and we were texting each other like, this is really good.

  • Did you read of his own three Shit, You know?

  • Whoa, What?

  • And then I finished it, and I was like, I can't do this.

  • I can't do this.

  • It takes place, like in Gaza and in London, And I have a 14 month old and a seven year old and I can't do it.

  • And Courtney, my manager, was like, 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 really turning point.

  • I feel like that was really 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 I really learned so much from that part.

  • Front left.

  • Yeah, 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 in the third season is by far the best season.

  • There's no question about it.

  • I've seen all eight episodes of the hair.

  • Well, you know, making it.

  • It's I think it's kind of leagues beyond the 1st 2 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 Duce than in anything I've done before.

  • It's just pushed me to the edge of what I'm able to dio.

  • I think two Falls ago, when people were actresses, were sort of getting together at people's houses, says 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, ah, stunt coordinator there to make sure you're okay.

  • Why isn't there somebody like that for sexy?

  • In Season two, we had an intimacy coordinator.

  • Basically, her job was to call the actors beforehand, talked to them about what they were gonna be doing, introduced herself, let them know that she was there to advocate for them.

  • And so I think we're the first I think we started it.

  • 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 scene can't be shot.

  • But on our set, if you've signed a nudity waiver and then you change your mind, you changed your mind.

  • It's like actual consent.

  • If you go out to dinner with someone and you think I want to go to bed with him, and then you go back to his apartment.

  • You're like, actually, no.

  • Well, then, actually, no.

  • And it's the same on our set.

  • Okay, Jimmy.

  • Thank you.

  • Push it to the left.

  • 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?

  • Too?

  • 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 scrap to keep your eye out for more than one person.

  • So I was like, Oh, cool, what's this?

  • You know, and I I waited for it.

  • I didn't get it.

  • 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.

  • I just didn't hear back from anybody for like, a couple days.

  • I was like, I want you and finally, uh, call 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, doesn't have anything that's like, 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 are director and our producer both got pregnant in this time that we're in preproduction trying to put the movie together, and it pushed us back by year.

  • And then we shot it in 22 days for not enough money.

  • I mean, I love it.

  • I'm so proud of it.

  • I think it says really interesting things about a feminine experience.

  • And I think it's rare to see that I'm gonna direct an adaptation of Elena Ferrante's book, The Last Daughter, Um, which, which I adapted on We're gonna shoot next summer.

  • I'm in the process now of putting the movie together, who really starts three women and two of them I found already.

  • So right now I'm I'm really grateful for that time, and I just find the space has been really interesting.

  • I feel really curious about what it's gonna feel that feel like to actually be there shooting it.

  • But even this process, now of the beginnings of pre production R, has 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 Thio 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.

  • Um, And writing.

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

  • Yeah, I have no idea.

I think the best performances the ones I'm most proud of are the ones where, in order to play them, I have Thio learn something about myself or grow in some way.

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