A big part of being an actress specifically is feeling entitled to your artistic opinion, feeling that it means something, and being able to stand by it.
A play is much easier to maintain your personal life with because if you're rehearsing, you're working like from 11 to 6 or 11 to 5 and you get to have your whole morning and your whole evening. When you're doing the play, you have all day.
Acting is really important to me, so I think it would be really hard for me to do something I didn't believe in.
Having an education is invaluable.
I don't see that many movies lately that are actually about something, that are trying to challenge something about the way that people interact.
I feel so gratified about having finished college. I learned how to articulate myself. It gave me confidence more than anything. And also the ability to analyze the text.
I feel there is no shortage of real interesting women's roles. But I found them and did all of them just now.
I have a couple of girlfriends who are like, healing. We take care of each other. They know when I need to be taken care of.
I just worked with Julianne Moore, who I think includes her sexuality in everything she does, and is naked a lot and is in her 40s, or Diane Lane, they're both older actresses-who are super sexy.
I liked that idea. Someone who's trying to perform herself and not succeeding.
I made a movie where I played a girl that just got out of prison and we shot it very very quickly but very intensely-that took me a long time to get over.
I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.
I think most human beings, even if you're in a situation that's constricting or complicated or hard, they try to survive.
I think Secretary's funny, it is about sex, and there's a lot of sex in it, sex is the key, but you're talking about a lot of other complicated things.
I think sex is very interesting for most people, but I'm interested in sex as a way of communication, I'm not that interested in the fantasy version of a sex scene.
I want to have some effect on the way the world works in whatever way I can, and I also want to have the power to help get the movies that I think are important made.
I would like to do a big movie that many, many people see but I just know I would be miserable if it didn't have something to it.
I would like to have a home in the country that I could go to. First in this country and the other in the Mediterranean.
I'm playing somebody who is a recovering drug addict who got out of prison. It takes place in 2 weeks-the 1st 2 weeks I'm out of prison.
I'm pretty good at indulging myself. I'm about to go travel for a week. I like to get massaged, go into steam rooms. I take care of myself.
I'm still trying to figure out what the right line is between myself and the people I play. Sometimes I go too far one way or too far the other.
Most people are interested in seeing 27-year-old women who are in movies somehow connected to sex. It's interesting to everyone. Especially little movies that are having trouble getting made, there's always sex.
On a film, I was always acting. I was either changing my clothes really quickly and wiping off the lipstick and putting on the other lipstick and then working constantly, constantly.
Someone who's 26, 27, has a very different relationship to sex than someone who's 30.
Ten years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and having that be OK and have a conversation about it and everyone be cool with it.
The real test will be having a family; when I have a family you have to come home, you have to eat dinner with your kids.
There was something to me that was really compelling about that woman, already knowing she couldn't get pregnant. When I made that movie I was maybe 24, and to be 24 and already know you can't get pregnant, that was really interesting to me.
Things like the spanking scene with James Spader, I felt so protected and I was really trusting of James. So I felt excited and curious the way my character felt.
We were lounging around in this beautiful house in LA, and I'm coming from NY, so sometimes when we weren't working I would just sit on those folding chairs.
Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy.
You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances.
You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you.
I do seem to have a bit of a predilection for movies that say something transgressive.
It's my responsibility to see what we can move and change about these old-school feminist mantras.
I find myself more and more interested only in roles which move the world forward.
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. If you do it a little, sure, it's fun, but too much and you start to lose your footing.
Someone asked me why I didn't do teen movies or action movies, but I'm not interested in them.
With everything I work on, I want to be put in a position that I have to be brave to do the project.
These past couple of years have been about learning to not sabotage myself in a subtler way - for instance, even just by putting moisturiser on when I get out of the shower. Learning to honour myself and believing that I'm worth taking care of.
I really hated charm school. I guess I'm just a little bit bad.
There is a need, especially right now in America, to be a bit provocative.
I want roles that challenge people to question where they are in life.
(While promoting Mona Lisa Smile (2003)) "I've realised that the only way to make movies that you're proud of, that don't fall into the sentimental bullshit that so many movies fall into, is to fight. You have to fight. So many people are willing to sleepwalk through things and fall into the not human, not interesting choice".
(On doing Homebody/Kabul) "To get people emotionally involved in something intellectual and political is important."
I didn't act the way little kids do, I threw my whole self into it.
(About being the youngest actress on her film Casa de los babys (2003)) "I felt out of place and not listened to".
(On her new film Strip Search (2004) (TV)) "I think it's important to see. It's a real violation, and it forces people to get emotionally involved in something that's intellectual and political".
(referring to when she started acting) "Even in elementary school, I took it really seriously. I was always doing plays."
There are two ways to be cool: One is to be disinterested and make it seem like you must be doing something much more interesting than everybody else if you are this disinterested. The other is to be extremely interested. You are not trying to please anyone, but you are really invested are really focused.
I just want to support these films and be a part of them in any way because they are so provocative and interesting.
I don't think it is the narrative necessarily that is the most important thing I think it is the human interaction that is the most important thing.
I do see things sometimes that are good, but they don't feel like a challenge to me personally. Like, in my own life and so often I think the things that excite me are things that feel a little bit beyond my grasp.
I am looking for movies that are actually about something and that are questioning something. Movies that are provocative in some way and I am also looking for roles that I think will force me to grow or learn something about myself or the world in order to play them well.
Older sister of Jake Gyllenhaal.
Daughter of Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Foner.
Earned a B.A. in English from Columbia University (1999).
Studied briefly at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.
The first six movies she made (Waterland (1992); A Dangerous Woman (1993); Shattered Mind (1996) (TV); The Patron Saint of Liars (1998) (TV); Homegrown (1998); _Resurrection (1999/II) (TV)_ Qv) ) were all directed by her father.
Attended the Dazed and Confused and Svedka Vodka Fashion Week Party.
Attended the Olympus Fashion Week Fall 2004
Attended the Bradley Bayou / Halston Fall 2003 Collection.
During the 2003 Academy Awards, she wore a peace sign pin in support of the organization Artists United to Win Without War.
She co-hosted the Sundance Awards 2003.
Played sister to real-life brother Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie Donnie Darko (2001).
Broke up with her artist boyfriend of five years during the filming of Secretary (2002).
Has been in three movies with her brother Jake Gyllenhaal: A Dangerous Woman (1993) (which was directed by their father), Homegrown (1998) (which was directed by their father), and Donnie Darko (2001).
Attended Cosabella at the Cabana Beauty Buffet Presented with Allure Magazine.
Attended Lions Gate Films Pre-Oscar Party 2004.
Attended Lotus Throws Itself a 2nd Anniversary Bash.
Attended the 10th Annual Premiere Women In Hollywood Luncheon.
Attended the The 61st Annual Golden Globe Awards (2004) (TV) -- InStyle/ Warner Bros Golden Globe Party.
Attended the 61st Annual Golden Globe Awards HBO Party.
Attended the Bradley Bayou/Halston Fall 2003 Collection -- LA Launch.
Attended the Cirque Du Soleil Presents its Latest Touring Production Varekai party.
Attended the Costume Institute Dance: "Party of the Year"
Attended the Focus Features Golden Globes After Party.
Attended the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall 2003 Collections -- Marc Jacobs -- Front Row and Backstage.
Attended the opening of Pradas New York Flagship Store.
Attended the opening of Reaction Kenneth Cole's flagship store.
Attended the Opening of the 1st Los Angeles Equinox Fitness Club.
Attended the Proenza Schouler Maurice Villency Holiday Party.
Attended the Vanity Fair "In Concert" Series Launch Party.
Attended the Vanity Fair Oscar Party 2004.
Attended the opening night of "Jumpers" April 25, 2004.
Was born in New York City but grew up in Los Angeles where she and her brother attended the prestigious Harvard-Westlake prep school.
Her mother is a Golden Globe-winning, Oscar-nominated scriptwriter. Her father is an Emmy-nominated director, her grandmother is a doctor and Eric Foner, her mother's first husband, is an acclaimed historian at Columbia, the college she attended.
Was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) after the 2004 Academy Awards.
Her mother is good friends, and was once the mentor of, Laurie Collyer who wrote SherryBaby (2006) (aka "Shall Not Want"), in which Maggie stars.
Her friendship with best friend Kirsten Dunst ended when Dunst broke up with Maggie's brother Jake.
Graduated Harvard-Westlake (private) high school in North Hollywood, California.
Engaged to Peter Sarsgaard and expecting a baby [April 11, 2006].
Ranked as #58 in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005" special supplement. (2005)
Met her fianc? at a dinner party.
She and brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, attended Camp Walt Whitman, an outdoors summer camp in Western New Hampshire.
Maggie and her fianc?, Peter Sarsgaard, became the parents of a girl, named Ramona, on October 3, 2006 in New York City.
Loves musicals.
Her favorite actress is Gena Rowlands.
Is of Swedish (noble) and Russian-Jewish descent.
Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004.
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