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Gotham's new girl: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Renowned for maverick, art-house roles, Maggie Gyllenhaal leaps into superstardom with the new Batman film.
By Sarra Manning
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In an age of cookie-cutter celebrities who are famous for their size double-zero figures rather than their talent, Maggie Gyllenhaal is downright subversive. She has played a pantheon of quirky characters, including lost girl Lee Holloway, who enters into a sweetly sado- masochistic love affair in Secretary. Off-screen, the reasons to have a girl crush on Ms. G are legion, from her covetable wardrobe to her work as a Democrat activist to her famous sibling, Jake-whom you may also have a crush on.
It's no surprise, then, that she turns up for our interview without any fanfare or entourage. Dressed in low-key brown shorts and a cream camisole with a shocking-pink bra strap peeking through, Gyllenhaal greets me with dishevelled hair and her signature lopsided smile. A tad prickly in her press cuts, in the flesh she's wonderfully affable, joking with the waitress as she orders soft-shell crab and salad. The printed word doesn't do Gyllenhaal's vodka-dry sense of humour justice: She speaks in italics and sarcastic quote marks, thoughts and feelings that shift rapidly across her expressive face.
It soon becomes apparent, though, that parts of her life have “No comment” stamped across them. A mention of Jake makes her collapse on the table and groan
dramatically. Her relationship with actor Peter Sarsgaard-the father of her daughter, Ramona, born in October 2006-isn't up for discussion either. And her big-bucks part in the new Batman film, The Dark Knight? Contractually, she's not allowed to blab too much about that.
A new kind of movie
While Gyllenhaal has received rave reviews for her roles in art-house flicks, The Dark Knight is a major departure for her. It's set to catapult her into the ranks of actresses who command multi-million-dollar salaries and their own action figures-as the Spider-Man franchise did for Jake's ex, Kirsten Dunst. In the film, Gyllenhaal plays Rachel Dawes, Gotham City's assistant district attorney and Batman's love interest. While Batman (Christian Bale) is
facing off against his arch-nemesis The Joker (the late Heath Ledger), district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) arrives on the scene.
“Initially, I thought, ‘If it doesn't seem like I can do a good job and have a good time, I don't want to do it,'” recalls Gyllenhaal. But then the 30-year-old actress met with director Christopher Nolan and read the script. “I thought, ‘Wouldn't it be great to be the girl in a big action movie and do it well and be interesting?' I was prepared to not have as much creative freedom as I'm used to, but I was thrilled.”
Although Rachel has moments when she's the “damsel in distress,” Gyllenhaal says that her character is smart, well rounded and powerful. It's a departure from her role in SherryBaby, in which she played an ex-con on parole who is trying to reunite with her daughter and stay away from heroin.
Never one to shy away from nudity if the part demands it, Gyllenhaal admits to having had mixed feelings about the sex scenes in SherryBaby. “I convinced myself that Sherry felt empowered: She was out of prison and wanted to feel good,” she says. “But then I watched it and those scenes were so sad. If there had been less sex and nudity, it would have been more gratuitous. It tells you something about her.”
Check out our slideshow of Maggie's red carpet style
Image courtesy of Steve Granitz/WireImage.com
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