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'The Interview': Maggie Gyllenhaal Thinks Hollywood Likes Women to Direct ‘Little Movies’

February 28, 2026·45 min·4 clips

Maggie Gyllenhaal almost quit directing The Bride after a panic attack in a Venice restaurant.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Maggie Gyllenhaal at length about her new film The Bride, a big-budget revisionist take on the Bride of Frankenstein starring Jesse Buckley, which Gyllenhaal wrote and directed for Warner Brothers. Gyllenhaal describes being terrified enough before starting the project that she nearly gave it to another director, and credits her husband Peter Sarsgaard with pushing her forward. She traces the film's origins to seeing a Bride of Frankenstein tattoo on a stranger's arm and realizing the character appears in the original 1935 film for only three minutes without speaking a single word -- yet has achieved enormous cultural resonance, which she reads as evidence of what Mary Shelley may not have been able to express in print as a woman in the 19th century. Gyllenhaal discusses the film's violence at length, noting that every death has consequence and cost, and that she was asked by test screening audiences and studio executives to reduce certain scenes. She distinguishes between her interest in violence and her actual interest, which she identifies as the rage against violence -- and then what lies beneath that rage, arguing rage is an umbrella emotion covering deep vulnerability. She describes her long negotiation with Warner Brothers executive Pam Abdi as ultimately productive, arguing that Abdi's challenges made the film better and crediting their collaboration as two women working in genuine dialogue. She invited her brother Jake to appear in a cameo role -- he sings and dances as a matinee idol figure -- and describes tearing up when she called to invite him, seeing it as a vulnerable act of reaching toward closeness after years of separateness. She also directed her husband Peter Sarsgaard in The Lost Daughter, which required her to coach him through a love affair with Jesse Buckley and call on her cinematographer to reshoot a scene with an errant wine glass while managing her personal feelings about the romantic content. On the film industry, she notes that only 8% of films are directed by women, a seven-year low, and suggests that when women do direct they tend to do so with particular power and energy. She connects her decision to become a director to Donald Trump's 2016 election, saying it made her feel she had more to say than she had been saying. The tone is reflective and intimate, with Gyllenhaal as a candid and articulate interviewee willing to discuss both her artistic method and her personal life.

As heard by us

A steady conversation about family, motherhood, and the pressures shaping Maggie Gyllenhaal's work.

Maggie Gyllenhaal talks through the work that moved her from actor to director, and Lulu Garcia Navarro keeps the focus on the links between taboo desire, motherhood, and the awkward business of making art with family close by.

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Why you'd press play

You want a serious, unhurried interview that treats film craft like real work.

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