Maggie Gyllenhaal on Sexual Liberation

     The beloved indie star tells Salon about her
     "vibrator movie" and why she loves playing
     transgressive women

By Andrew O'Hehir
May 18, 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/18/maggie_gyllenhaal_on_sexual_liberation/

When I met Maggie Gyllenhaal about six weeks ago, she
was enormously and gloriously pregnant, stretching out
on a sofa with her shoes off and feet up in a Manhattan
office building. (Since that time, Gyllenhaal and
husband Peter Sarsgaard have welcomed their second
daughter, Gloria Ray, to the world.) We were there to
talk about "Hysteria," the charming, lightweight
feminist farce from director Tanya Wexler that explores
a key event in the history of female sexuality: the
invention of the vibrator by Mortimer Granville, a
Victorian doctor who was seeking to cure the mysterious
"female malady" that lends the movie its title.

While I wouldn't assume there's a vast amount of
historical and social accuracy to "Hysteria," it's a lot
of fun, and could definitely provide a viable moviegoing
alternative for adult women eager to move on from "Iron
Man" and "Captain America." Gyllenhaal's character, the
crusading feminist and social worker Charlotte
Dalrymple, who becomes the comic and romantic foil to
Hugh Dancy's stuffy, stammering Granville, might be
described as a supporting character who takes over the
movie. Charlotte effectively becomes the modern viewer's
window into the world of "Hysteria," insisting as a
matter of course that women indeed enjoy sexual pleasure
(but are often plagued with partners who don't know how
to deliver it) and espousing then-outrageous views about
women's right to vote, go to college, work outside the
home and so on.

Although still best known for her roles in independent
films like the 2002 spanking-liberation manifesto
"Secretary," Spike Jonze's "Adaptation" and the
underappreciated "Sherrybaby" (not to mention her early
role opposite real-life brother Jake Gyllenhaal in
"Donnie Darko"), Gyllenhaal has also appeared in several
major Hollywood productions, including "The Dark
Knight," "Crazy Heart" and the forthcoming "Won't Back
Down," in which she stars with Viola Davis as parents
trying to rescue a failing public school. Her prodigious
on-screen charm is matched by a reputation as one of the
most genuine and easygoing people in the movie business,
and although I'd never met her before, this was one of
the most relaxed interviews I've ever conducted.

We began our conversation, in fact, by talking about the
Park Slope Food Coop, the legendary Brooklyn collective
grocery store where we are both members. Unlike some
celebrity members I could name, Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard
perform their assigned Coop work shifts personally. (She
works in the basement, wearing a kerchief and packing
nuts, teas, spices and cheeses, although like any other
new mom she now has a one-year work exemption.) Is the
Coop's produce both better and cheaper than the pretty
but nosebleed-expensive stuff for sale at Manhattan's
outdoor markets, we asked each other rhetorically? It
is. Then we moved on to "Hysteria."

ANDREW O'HEHIR: So it seems like this must have been a
fun character to play. You get to be the totally
uninhibited character in a movie where everybody else
has the 19th century hanging over them. You're the
liberated woman at a time when there almost weren't any.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Right. Sometimes, a movie is set up
where you're meant to be winning, you know what I mean?
I've certainly played a lot of characters who were
really flawed and did horrible things, and where the
challenge is to ask the audience if they can be
compassionate enough to still have empathy for you.
That's really important to me, and I think that's a
really interesting thing to do with film - play a
character who's really flawed and ask the audience to
practice being compassionate. Or who does things that
are really outrageous that the audience might have
judgments about, and make them question where their
judgments come from.

This is completely different. This is like, you walk in
and the movie doesn't work if Charlotte isn't winning.
But the one thing I really did think - I mean, the
script was so great, and so much of the tone of the
movie was in place. I didn't think it needed to be
shifted almost at all. But one thing that I think comes
from me is that I didn't care at all about her being
historically accurate. About her not having the 19th
century over her, like you said. I think the movie is
served better if she seems wild even now, if she seems
so full of life that she could come from any time. Or
any planet!

Because what she's talking about in the movie - the
actual politics - is very simple. The movie doesn't have
room for a complicated discussion of socialism. She
says, "Socialism is a lot of people working together."
Well, you know, I mean - there's a lot more to say about
it! (Laughter.) Or, you know, women should have the
right to vote, women should be able to go to college.
We're good with that here! So because her politics are
so simple, and because the things that were so
outrageous that she was saying do not sound outrageous
now, she needs to be more outrageous in her spirit. So,
yeah, it was fun to be able to just go, "You guys are
constricted and constrained by all these things, and I
just don't feel them!"

ANDREW O'HEHIR: I have to say the question of historical
accuracy, or lack thereof, really never bothered me.
It's not that kind of movie.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Yeah. I think you're on the wrong
track if that's what you're worried about!

ANDREW O'HEHIR: But one thing the writers really got
right - or maybe this is your theatrical background and
English-lit education at work - is that Charlotte feels
like the heroine of a George Bernard Shaw play that Shaw
never got around to writing.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Right! Right! She fits into a history
of great wild women, you know? Even, like, '40s women,
screwball women, who you love even though they're
pissing you off. So, yeah, I agree with that. I liked
that about it. I thought it would be fun!

ANDREW O'HEHIR: You know, I probably can't push this
analysis of your career too far, but you do have a
pattern of playing transgressive women, women who are
defying social norms. Do you see it that way?

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Well, I guess I think - and this
might not be true either - but if you think about who
might be interesting to watch, is it interesting to
watch someone who's absolutely following the norm and
the pattern you're used to watching? Sometimes people
write those characters and they're much more secondary
characters meant to give you some exposition or
whatever. Usually, the interesting character in a movie
is either making a big change or transgressing somehow -
making you think about how you live. So, yes, that is
what appeals to me, but I also think it appeals to many
people.

But no, I think maybe you're right. When I think about
Chekhov's "Three Sisters," for example - did you happen
to see the production that we did last year?

ANDREW O'HEHIR: No. I really, really wanted to. I love
that play.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Well, so, of the three sisters, the
transgressive one is Masha, and that's who I played. But
of course Olga is such an interesting character, and
she's not really transgressing at all. And in the movie
I did after this, which is called "Won't Back Down," I'm
also fighting against everything. It's coming out in
September, I think. I'm so pregnant! I'm all like, "It's
coming out sometime! I'll talk to people about it!" Then
there's my character in "Crazy Heart" - she's
transgressive too, in a way. In her heart.

ANDREW O'HEHIR: And of course everybody's going to bring
up "Secretary," which, although it's quite a different
movie from "Hysteria," is also about liberating female
sexuality.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Well, yeah. That's why people think
about me that way. It's always about what your first big
movie is, that anybody knows about. And that movie is
about transgression. I mean, that movie is overtly about
what it means to transgress, and how it feels, and how
you can live as a transgressor. But maybe it's true: I
am interested in people who are thinking - although the
girl in "Crazy Heart" definitely isn't thinking, or she
wouldn't do a lot of the things she does! I don't know,
you probably can't tie them all together.

ANDREW O'HEHIR: No, I wasn't arguing that they all fit
into that template. I'm always curious about the effect
of having appeared in a really big movie. Do people see
you on the street now and recognize you just because of
"The Dark Knight"?

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Some people do, yeah. It's funny,
because I've moved back and forth a lot. Even last year,
I made "Hysteria" and then I made "Won't Back Down,"
which is a studio movie. There's such a different
feeling in terms of schedule, in terms of time, in terms
of subject matter. I used to find it much easier to work
on little movies: the pace and the way of working was
just better for me. But I think I'm starting to change.
I think I work the same way now on a smaller movie as I
did on "Won't Back Down." It depends on the style of the
movie. It's harder when you're in and out, like on "Dark
Knight" or "World Trade Center." I find that difficult.
You're not going to work and working for two months,
going into the tunnel and just getting in your body who
you are.

ANDREW O'HEHIR: How has moving into your 30s changed
your career? Don't get me wrong, you're still young! I
was actually thinking it might have opened up some
different possibilities.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: Yeah, I actually feel like getting
older has opened up a spectrum of roles to me. When I
was younger, a lot of the roles that were coming to me
were like, especially from a more Hollywood standpoint,
the wacky girl. (Laughter.) Now I feel really drawn to
playing grown-up women. I'm 34, and maybe it's the way
people age now or whatever, but I still feel like some
roles I play are not grown-up women and some roles are.
In "Won't Back Down" she's a child. In "Hysteria" she's
a woman, and in "Crazy Heart" she's kind of half and
half. You know, I have one foot in and one foot out. But
thank God I'm done with, like, the wacky 25-year-old
girl! That never worked that well for me. Plus, it's so
interesting to see a crop of really talented new
actresses who are in a different generation.

ANDREW O'HEHIR: Tell me who you especially like.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL: I love Rooney Mara. I was absolutely
blown away by her performance in "Girl With the Dragon
Tattoo." Absolutely blown away. And to be honest, when
you're an actress, you go in and say, "All right - show
me what you can do!" And every turn of that performance
was excellent, and not just excellent in the way that
some young actors are, where they're just working on
instinct and they have no craft. That was a crafted,
excellent, beautiful performance. So to root for someone
younger, that's new for me. (Laughter.) You know, I'm
sort of not in that young group anymore! I'm in another
group now, but I like seeing talented young women come
along. It's exciting! What are they like? What I loved
about Rooney Mara in that movie was that she wasn't
asking for anyone to love her. That's hard to do!

"Hysteria" opens this week in New York and Los Angeles,
with wider national release to follow.

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